A US fumigation airplane pilot has been killed and his co-pilot injured in a crash the south of Colombia, the US embassy in Bogota said Friday.
” The United embassy regrets to inform about the death of an American pilot in a sinister accident on [Friday] September 27 on Colombian territory,” Colombian media cited an embassy press release.
The embassy reportedly said the Air Tractor AT-802 airplane was on a fumigation mission on the request of the Colombian national police.
“Preliminary information we have is that it was a mechanical failure,” a police source told Reuters.
The embassy said to not reveal the name of the pilot out of respect for his family.
Local media reported that the airplane had taken off from the Larandia airport in the south of the Caqueta department and crashed in the municipality of Montañita.
The US military is in Colombia as part of Plan Colombia, a bilateral pact to combat coca cultivation, drug trafficking and leftist rebels that was kicked off in 2001. Since then, Washington spent $8 billion in Colombia after which coca cultivation in the South American country dropped.