Anti-narcotics helicopter crash kills 11
An anti-narcotics helicopter searching for gunmen protecting drug plantations has crashed into a mountain in southern Mexico, killing all nine soldiers and two federal pilots onboard, authorities said.
What caused the crash was unclear, but the aircraft may have been attacked by drug smugglers on the ground, according to a statement released by the federal attorney general’s office.
Trouble began in the isolated mountains near the town of Tlapa, about 130 miles south-east of Mexico City, when a Bell 206 L-IV chopper carrying soldiers and investigators on a routine anti-narcotics mission was hit by gunfire from the ground.
Bullets struck the helicopter along a baggage compartment and the pilot was able to land without incident at a nearby airstrip.
A second federal chopper, this one a Bell 212 carrying one military officer and eight soldiers as well two pilots from the attorney general’s office, took off to find those who shot the first helicopter, but crashed near the village of Igualita, 20 miles south-east of Tlapa in Guerrero state.
Investigators were working to determine what caused the crash and the statement said gusty winds and limited visibility in the area may have played roles.
But it said authorities “have not ruled out in any way the possibility that the helicopter crash was the result of direct aggression of drug traffickers”.
It added that the area around Tlapa was a hotbed for illegal drug crops where federal attorney general’s office aircraft “have suffered the highest number of attacks with firearms and cable traps.”
In March 2003, gunmen guarding an opium-poppy plantation shot down two police helicopters, killing all five agents aboard.
Drug traffickers also often string steel cables across drug fields to try to snare the rotors of crop-spraying helicopters as well as those on surveillance flights over the area.
So far this year, federal attorney general’s office helicopters on anti-narcotics missions have been attacked six times, twice by gunfire from the ground and four times by cables placed laid as traps, the statement said.
