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Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Security elements among 7 dead in plane crash in Zacatecas

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

Foto de Wikipedia

Seven individuals including four Mexican federal police agents were killed in an aircraft crash midday Tuesday in Zacatecas state, according to Mexican news accounts.

A news report which appeared in the onlone edition of El Siglo de Durango news daily said that the aircraft was taking off from Zacetacas airport in Zacatecas when the pilot radioed he was returning to the airport.  The aircraft was bound for Mexico City. 

The aircraft crashed in Morelos municipality just ten minutes after takeoff near an area called Noria de Gringos.  The aircraft crashed just a few kilometers from General Leobardo C. Ruiz International Airport in Calera municipality.

The agents were due to return to Mexico City Monday night at around 2255 hrs, but the aircraft was forced to return to the airport because of an unspecified mechanical problem.  The aircraft took off at 1200 hrs on Tuesday, but then crashed.

Among the dead were Antonio Andres Alvarez Mota, a ministerial agent with the Ministerio Publico de la Federacion  and affiliated with the Subprocuraduria Especializada en Investigacion en contra de la Delincuencia Organizada (SEIDO) or organized crime bureau of the Procuraduria General de la Republic (PGR), the Mexican national attorney general's office.

Also reported dead were two Policia Federal (PF) ministerial agents  Ricardo Martín Flores Benitez and Francisco Leonardo Niño Acevedo.  Another PF ministerial agent assigned to Zacatecas, Martín Antonio Gutierrez Cantu, also died in the crash.

Also dead were the pilot, Guillermo Flores Millan, the copilot Juan Manuel Garcia Bernal and a mechanic, Miguel Angel Guerrero Coliev.

The aircraft was a 1985 Kingair 300 twin engine turboprop, which belonged to the PGR.

According to the El Siglo de Durango report, the ministerial agents were in Zacatecas state to serve an arrest warrant for three alleged Los Zetas operatives identified as Juan Luis Gallegos Muro, Fernando Rodríguez Robles Zaldivar and Anacleto Flores.  The three alleged drug cartel members were sent to Centro de Reinsercion Social (CERESO) in Cieneguillas.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political new for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com

13 comments:

  1. what kind of weapon would've cause it.

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  2. Why do they need arrest warrants , as if somehow the guys arrested will b convicted of anything. Mind boggling

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  3. The list of govt. and security officials who were killed in aerial accidentes continues to grow in México. Although the crash of the Attorney General of the Republic's airplane will probably not be investigated, or declared, as a criminal act, the odds that the airplane was sabotaged are not farfetched. These accidentes involving federal police and public officials have become far too common. The cartels and their corrupt political allies don't want their illicit drug business hindered in anyway. Two of Calderón's Secretariat of the Interior Ministers(SEGOB)and the head of the Office of Investigation Specialized in Organized Crime(SIEDO) were killed in aircraft accidents. Moreover, strangely the interior ministers suffered their fatal aerial accidentes three years apart to the date: Juan Camilo Mouriño in November 11, 2008; Francisco Blake Mora in November 11, 2011. José Santiago Vasconcelos, head of SIEDO died alongside Mouriño.

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  4. Must be hell to fly in Mexico, lets say you`re a crazy sicario, relaxing with your sicario `friends` and you see a plane fly over you. Wouldn`t you then just empty your guns in the direction of the plane and laugh, just for fun?

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  5. FYI - NY Times has it as 6.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/world/americas/plane-carrying-mexican-officials-crashes-killing-6.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0

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  6. If a car is mostly not drivable after 15 years why would they fly on a airplane close to 30years in service. with the corruption in Mexico u would think they have a better plane...

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  7. Mexican newspapers are calling the plane "chatarra", which means junk. Apparently, it was in such bad condition it should have been retired. A few months ago,the Mexican Attorney General's Office retired almost 90% of its aircraft, or at least announced that it would do so, because only about 10% of all its fleet was in safe enough condition to fly. There was also an investigation into widespread fraud involving aircraft maintenance that revealed that PGR maintenance personnel were ordering new parts and selling them to private parties instead of installing them. So the PGR's fleet was junk and maintained with junk parts. So the crash was no surprise.

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  8. Yeah this was just an accident, the plane was a piece of junk that couldn´t fly when it was scheduled and was about to return to the airport due to mechanic problems right when it crashed, also the zetas arrested were just local dealers and zeta thugs in Calera, a town of 30,000, not important people.

    The area is not zeta haven anymore, even if they had wanted to put the plane down not that easy to do in the middle of disputed territory with CDG and not worth to do either, bring even more heat onto them for 3 low rank zetas who were already in prison by when that plane crashed.

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  9. Lo tumbaron de un bazukaso lol cartel got ant aircraft machines guns and explosives they could knock down the plane pretty sure they did lol

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  10. Note to self do not board an airplane in Mexico. What causes more death in Mexico plane crashes or drug trafficking??

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  11. Most dangerous ocupacion bodyguard, food taster, or pilot?

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  12. Mexican Airlines call it "Aero Scaero".

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  13. Mexicans should not be Flying a Kingair, and sure enough they did not.

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