U.S. spy plane crashes in Philippines

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Posted 7:25AM on Sunday, March 31, 2002

ABOARD PATROL GUNBOAT 379, PHILIPPINES - An unmanned American spy plane crashed at sea Sunday in the southern Philippines, where it had been used for aerial reconnaissance in a U.S. counterterrorism training exercise, military officials said. It was the second U.S. crash since the exercises began in January. An MH-47 Chinook helicopter went down in flames over deep water on Feb. 22, killing all 10 men aboard. Five of the bodies were recovered Saturday. Three were recovered shortly after the crash and two remain missing. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Erica Smith of the U.S. Pacific Command in Honolulu said that in Sunday's accident, the plane ``made an emergency water landing on a routine training flight.'' The cause of the accident is under investigation, she said. Maj. Cynthia Teramae, spokeswoman for U.S. forces in the Philippines, said the unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, was on its way back to a Philippine air force base in the southern port city of Zamboanga after a flight of less than an hour when something went wrong. Teramae said the plane went down over water ``to ensure safety.'' The crash site was about 6 miles away from a Muslim slum village in Zamboanga, a predominantly Roman Catholic area of more than 600,000 people. Asked if the aircraft was downed by hostile fire, Teramae replied, ``No.'' She said she did not know if the aircraft flew over nearby Basilan island, where manned and unmanned American surveillance aircraft have been flown to help the Philippine military locate Abu Sayyaf Muslim guerrillas, who have been holding an American missionary couple for 10 months. The Philippine government has requested the surveillance flights, she said. The white aircraft, its nose ripped off but otherwise intact, was floating with its wheels up about 6 miles from Zamboanga, the main base for the exercise aimed at helping Philippine troops wipe out Abu Sayyaf, which is believed to have links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. The wreckage originally was snagged by six local fisherman, who were using a rope to tow it to a nearby Philippine navy ship when six U.S. servicemen arrived in a pair of black rubber boats that also carried their rifles and Philippine troops. The Americans cut electrical wires on the plane, which had a wingspan of 25-30 feet, and took some parts away as six fishing boats and two hovering helicopters watched. U.S. military intelligence-gathering equipment and aircraft also have been used to try to locate Wichita, Kan. missionaries Gracia and Martin Burnham and Filipino nurse Ediborah Yap, snatched in separate mass abductions 10 months ago. Unmanned, remote-controlled spy planes have been used extensively by U.S. forces in Afghanistan for reconnaissance as well as military strikes.