MindaNews: US 'spy plane' crashes in southern Philippines

PIKIT, North Cotabato – An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), more popularly known as “spy plane" crashed at the backyard of a retired policeman here at about 8:10 p.m. Saturday, October 18, but officials have kept mum about the incident. There was no explosion, just a loud thud, retired policeman Eusebio Camancho and her neighbor Marcela Benjamin told MindaNews. Camancho said the local police immediately came to collect the wreckage from his backyard at Cabanog St. that same night. The crash produced a dent on the ground near a langka (jackfruit) tree, just behind the cage for ducks. One of its wings might have hit a coconut palm frond, Camancho said. The crash site is in a residential area, almost a block away from the tower of a major telecommunications facility. No American soldier came to retrieve the wreckage, just the local police, Camancho said, adding the police returned the next morning to collect the smaller fragments. Camancho pointed to MindaNews fragments on the ground where the UAV crashed: silver metal, very light materials colored gray, small wirings and rubber tubings. Camancho said that when he saw what crashed in the dark, he initially thought it was a dud 81-mm mortar. He estimated the spy plane as having a wingspan of 8 feet with a 12-inch body. Pikit Mayor Sumulong Sultan who attended a sectoral dialogue with residents of the seven “Spaces for Peace" in Nalapaan Elementary School Wednesday morning said he did not know about the crash. “No comment," said Senior Inspector Elias Dandan, Pikit police chief. “Negative," Lt. Col. Dickson Hermoso, commanding officer of the 7th Infantry Battalion based in Pikit, said Tuesday on the reported UAV crash. The Philippine Air Force does not have a UAV. But American soldiers in Mindanao have. In fact, Saturday’s crash is not the first involving a UAV in a conflict-affected area in Mindanao. An Associated Press report datelined Jolo, Sulu, in February 2006 said a farmer received P50,000 reward for turning over a UAV that went missing in November 2005 and was found February 10 in a coconut field in Indanan town. Then US military spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Zimmer, according to the AP report, said the UAV, was used for “typographical study, the safety of roads and security of troops on Jolo island, where American and Filipino soldiers are preparing for annual military exercises later this month." The report added that Zimmer, in early February 2006, “appealed for the return of the unarmed drone, which he said costs about US$35,000 and is ‘one of the platforms we use to assist the armed forces of the Philippines to help improve their counterterrorism capabilities.’" - Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews