Mysterious cargo plane abandoned in Blue Creek
It began innocently enough…the hum of an engine piercing the silence of sunset in the Mennonite community of Blue Creek in the Orange Walk District. But within minutes, the noise increased and then villagers watched in surprise as a sixty-foot cargo plane used their farm road as a runway. Strange vehicles bearing Mexican license plates came next…and as fast as they’d come, everyone vanished…leaving the plane and a whole lot of questions behind. News 5’s Patrick Jones and Cameraman George Tillett were in Blue Creek today…here’s what they found.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
The unusual sound of a large aircraft flying low over the village on Friday evening prompted residents to go peeping outside. According to one farmer who wished to appear off camera, what they found was simply astounding.
Blue Creek Farmer
“I was looking all time at it as it was landing, in that I hear it land over this plane. And in the evening my sons came over just for fun and I told them don’t go there. And they over to my place and they told me that the plane was over there and they saw the plane there. They saw people too, but just the lights. But they were scary and they turned around and came home.”
Heavily armed B.D.F. and police now stand guard over the imposing aircraft in the northern community section of Blue Creek, about three miles from the Mexican border.
Estimations are that the Russian made cargo plane has been sitting in the middle of this farm road from as late as Friday evening. Residents of the Blue Creek community tell News 5 that they heard the plane hovering overhead and that it came down sometime between five and six o’clock in the evening.
Officials of the Belize Government have been on site since the weekend salvaging the aircraft to try to determine its payload, where it came from and where it was going.
Chairman of the village Peter Rempel says the presence of the plane in Blue Creek is cause for concern.
Peter Rempel, Chairman, Blue Creek Village
Definitely we are afraid of what is going on in the community like that. But we don’t know what is happening, we don’t know what it is.”
And whatever official plans are for the aircraft, Rempel says farmers just want their road back.
Peter Rempel
“We just offer them to move it from there and we wait for them to okay it and then we will go ahead and move it from there, so that we can move the road.”
Patrick Jones
“When you say move it, what are you going to do, haul it away or drive it away?”
Peter Rempel
Haul it away. That doesn’t belong to us, we would just haul it from the road and then the government can decide what it wants to do. Just push it aside so we use the road. After that the government can decide what they want to do with it.”
Patrick Jones for News 5.
At news time tonight, no one had been detained for questioning in connection with this incident.
