U.S. Drone Spy Plane Crashes in Salvadoran Rebel Territory

A drone spy plane owned and operated by the United States crashed Friday in the northeastern El Salvador province of Morazan, an area of heavy guerrilla activity, U.S. and Salvadoran officials reported.

The officials said that the crash, in a remote area, caused no casualties.

Donald Hamilton, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy here, said that the drone, a pilotless aircraft, was being used to gather intelligence for the Salvadoran air force. He declined to give any details. The Salvadoran army attributed the crash to a mechanical failure.

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman told Associated Press that the downed plane was an R4E-40 Skyeye surveillance drone made by Lear Siegler Inc. of Santa Monica.

For months, U.S. Air Force reconnaissance planes from a military intelligence unit based in Honduras have been scouting guerrilla concentrations in El Salvador and passing the intelligence to the Salvadoran armed forces. In addition, U.S. defense contractors have been testing pilotless drones in Central America.

The U.S. activity has reportedly inhibited the Salvadoran guerrillas’ ability to organize large-scale attacks.

‘Intelligence Matter’

Hamilton described the crash of the drone on Friday as “an intelligence matter.” He added: “It is the policy of the U.S. government not to release information that could compromise intelligence matters.”

William Ormsbee, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command in Panama, said that the drone was being tested by “a small team of U.S. military personnel and civilian contractors.” He did not say where they were based.

Ormsbee said that the wreckage was recovered by Salvadoran air force personnel and taken to San Francisco Gotera, capital of Morazan province. A helicopter was sent from the Palmerola Air Base in Honduras, where U.S. and Honduran forces coordinate joint military exercises, to recover the wreckage.

Hamilton said that the wreckage would be examined to determine the cause of the crash.

“We don’t know if it was shot down, but we’re pretty sure it was not,” he said.

Salvadoran guerrillas, in a rebel radio broadcast, criticized the Reagan Administration for sending its “paper airplanes, toy airplanes” and added: “What we profoundly lament is that a U.S. pilot was not in that airplane.”

A Pentagon official in Washington recalled that the United States acknowledged several months ago that a civilian contractor was testing drones in Honduras to see how they would perform in the tropics.

“It’s so secret,” the official said, with irony, “that a model was on display in the (Pentagon) concourse.”