Plane Crashes in Colombia; 4 Americans Aboard

A U.S. government plane carrying four Americans and a Colombian army officer crash-landed in southern Colombia while on an intelligence-gathering mission, Colombian and U.S. officials said Thursday.

The single-engine Cessna 208 Caravan crashed around 9 a.m. about three miles north of the city of Florencia after reporting an emergency en route to a Colombian military base in Larandia, Colombian civil aviation officials said.

The pilot said, “I’m crashing,” in his last transmission, said Juan Carlos Velez, head of the civil aviation authority.

The fate of the crew was not clear, but rescue operations began almost immediately, said Gen. Hector Fabio Velasco, head of the Colombian air force. Searchers arriving 30 minutes after the emergency call found the plane incinerated.

Officials with the attorney general’s office who arrived late Thursday afternoon said they had found two bodies but were not able to remove them because of the late hour. The officials said the wreckage was spread over a large area with thick jungle. The Colombian military had secured the perimeter of the site by late Thursday and were planning to resume the search this morning.

Colombian military officials were investigating local media reports that rebels with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC for its initials in Spanish, may have seized some of the crew. Rebels control most of the rural area where the plane crashed.

The rebels issued no statement on the crash.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe was planning to hold an emergency security council meeting on the incident late Thursday.

DynCorp, a U.S. company under contract with the State Department to fumigate Colombia’s vast cocaine fields, said the U.S. Embassy had asked for help in rescuing the crew.

As part of its contract, DynCorp provides a search-and-rescue helicopter and crew to rescue downed crop-duster pilots. Eight DynCorp employees, including three Americans, have been killed in Colombia since 1995, most of them in accidents.

Caroline Longanecker, a spokeswoman for DynCorp, said the plane that crashed was not carrying DynCorp employees. “We are providing logistical support and aircraft to the Colombian military and police,” Longanecker said.

U.S. Embassy officials would not confirm the nationalities of the crew or the plane’s mission. They said the cause of the crash was engine failure.

In Washington, Justice Department officials denied local media reports that the four Americans were DEA agents. A spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration said the “DEA was not involved.”

One U.S. official, who said that CIA contractors frequently participate in such missions, did not know whether they were on Thursday’s flight.

The plane is registered to a Delaware company, One Leasing Inc. The company’s address is a mail drop for a firm specializing in incorporating companies under the state’s lax disclosure laws.

The plane went down in an area that is a center of production for coca, the plant used to produce cocaine.

U.S. reconnaissance planes frequently fly over the area to determine the location of coca fields for spraying.

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Times staff writer Adrianne Goodman in Washington contributed to this report.