A U.S. army service member and three protection contractors died Thursday within the Philippines after their surveillance flight crashed, officers say.
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command stated the plane contracted by the Division of Protection went down within the southern province of Maguindanao del Sur and “was offering intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assist on the request of our Philippine allies.”
“The incident occurred throughout a routine mission in assist of U.S.-Philippine safety cooperation actions,” U.S. Indo-Pacific Command stated in a press release to Fox Information.
“We are able to affirm no survivors of the crash. There have been 4 personnel on board, together with one U.S. army service member and three protection contractors,” it added.
The wreckage of the airplane in Maguindanao del Sur province, Philippines, following the crash on Thursday, Feb. 6. (Sam Mala/UGC by way of AP)
The reason for the crash stays below investigation.
The names of these concerned are being withheld pending subsequent of kin notification.
Windy Beaty, a provincial disaster-mitigation officer, instructed the Related Press that she obtained experiences that residents noticed smoke coming from the airplane and heard an explosion earlier than the plane plummeted to the bottom about half a mile from a cluster of farmhouses.
A water buffalo on the bottom was additionally killed because of the airplane crash, native officers stated.
U.S. forces have been deployed in a Philippine army camp within the nation’s south for many years to assist present recommendation and coaching to Filipino forces battling Muslim militants, the AP reported.
The area is the homeland of minority Muslims within the largely Roman Catholic nation.
The Related Press contributed to this report.