A member of the American military service and three defense entrepreneurs died Thursday in the Philippines after their surveillance flight crashed, officials said.
US Indo-Pacific Command said that the plane contracted by the Ministry of Defense fell into the southern province of Maguindanao Del Sur and “provided intelligence, surveillance and recognition support at the request of our Philippin Allies”.
“The incident occurred during a routine mission to support cooperation activities in American-Philippine security,” the American Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement to Fox News.
“We cannot confirm any survivors of the accident. There were four staff members on board, including a member of the US military service and three defense entrepreneurs,” he added.
The wreckage of the plane in Maguindanao Del on province, Philippines, following the accident on Thursday, February 6. (Sam Mala / UGC via AP)
The cause of the accident remains under study.
The names of the people involved are retained pending the next notification of the parents.
Windy Beaty, a provincial disaster attenuation agent, told the Associated Press that she had received information that residents saw smoke from the plane and heard an explosion before the plane does not fall on the ground for about half a thousand a group of farms.
A buffalo of water on the ground was also killed as a result of the plane crash, local officials said.
The American forces were deployed in a Filipino military camp in the south of the country for decades to help provide councils and training in the Philippine forces which are fighting against Muslim activists, AP reported.
The region is the homeland of minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
