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By Al Jacinto, Correspondent
ZAMBOANGA CITY: A US military spy plane crashed in North Cotabato
province where Filipino troops are battling Muslim rebels, reports
said.
The unmanned aerial vehicle crashed October 18
on a neighborhood in the town of Pikit after hitting a row of
coconut trees. Filipino and US authorities kept the news of the
crash secret until a local online news site, Minda News, filed a
report about the ill-fated unmanned aerial vehicla (UAV).
It said the UAV, whose wingspan was about eight
feet, crashed at night near the house of a certain Eusebio Camancho.
Policemen quickly recovered the wreckage of the spy plane and
returned the next morning to collect debris of the ill-fated UAV.
“There was no explosion, just a loud thud,”
Minda News quoted Camancho as saying.
The UAV is believed to be one of many spy planes
used by US forces deployed in the Mindanao. US troops are helping
Filipino military defeat terrorism.
Camancho said the UAV was made of silvery metal
and grey materials, whose parts included rubber tubing and wirings.
Its body, he said, measures about 12 inches only. Police and
military declined to comment about the crashed UAV. US embassy and
military officials also did not give any statement about the
unmanned aircraft.
It was not the first time that a US military UAV
had crashed in the southern Philippines. In 2006, villagers in Sulu
province held for ransom a crashed unmanned US drone used by the
military in tracking down Abu Sayyaf militants whose group is tied
to al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah.
The remote-controlled spy plane crashed February
10 in the mountain enclave of Marang in Indanan town. Local
television news showed footage of a villager holding the ill-fated
UAV, whose wingspan was about one meter long and has a slim body and
a video camera mounted on its belly. The villagers demanded P100,000
in exchange for the unmanned aircraft.
Another US unmanned spy plane also crashed in
November 2007 during a practice flight in Mount Tumatangis in Sulu.
It was unknown if the drone was found or not, but the crash was
never reported to the press. In March 2002, a US spy drone called
predator also crashed into the sea off Zamboanga City. The UAV went
down for a still unknown reason and was also recovered.
The US military has a fleet of various unmanned
spy planes, from a palm-size remote-controlled aircraft, to bigger
and sophisticated high-altitude; long-range remotely piloted
vehicles designed for long-endurance photographic reconnaissance and
electronic surveillance missions, and as attack air crafts. The US
military had used a Philippine Air Force base in Mactan Island in
Cebu province as station of its fleet of Orion spy planes.
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