Burnt Remains of Suspected Drug Plane Found in Toledo District

There has been an increase in the number of suspected drug planes flying out of South America recently.  A number of those flights have entered into Belizean airspace, with some going as far as the Turks and Caicos Islands.  On Friday, an aircraft departed from South America and within a few hours crossed over into Belize before disappearing from the radar altogether.  It was believed that the plane subsequently entered into Guatemala.  But when an aerial survey was done on Sunday, the vestiges of an aircraft were discovered in the area of Corazon Creek.  Today, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams provided more details during a press briefing.

Chester Williams

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“I must say that over the past few weeks, we’re seeing an increase in air traffic activities within the region, not only for Belize, but there was one that went even as far as Curacao, no, Turks and Caicos.  So Belize, again, being strategically located in Central America, bordering Mexico and Guatemala, does serve as a transit point for drugs to move to the north.  And so, over the weekend, on Friday night to be exact, there was a track that came out of South America and upon entering our airspace in the south it disappeared off the radar.  Information initially suggested that the plane had landed in Guatemala, but we did not get any information from our Guatemalan counterparts that it landed there.  And so, just to be sure, the BDF did a flyover on Sunday and during the flyover, they observed the burnt remains of a plane in the Corazon Creek area that is located, I think, about four miles from the Belize/Guatemala border.  And based on the observation by the BDF that did the flyover.  A team of police and BDF went into the area on foot and I must say that the area is vegetated, heavily rough terrain and it took them a couple hours to get to the location.  But when they finally got to the location, they indeed came across the burnt remains of a plane in that particular area.  Nothing else of interest was found.  Based on what I am briefed by the team that went it is that the remains that were found there seems to have been recently landed, so we believe that that would have been the plane that fell off the radar on Friday night.”