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Joined: Oct 1999
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Marty Offline OP
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lighthouse reef 3For three days, there have been reports that a plane had crashed in a caye in the Lighthouse atolls. It is believed the incident is drug related and police has remained tight lipped. As far as we can ascertain, the mystery plane is still submerged in the waters. News Five has learnt that a body found in the area last Friday, was brought ashore and quickly buried. The identity of the person has not been confirmed. News Five Jose Sanchez has been following this story and has this report.

Jose Sanchez, Reporting

A plane was reported to have crashed into the sea last week Friday night. It occurred in the Lighthouse reef Atoll about fifty-four miles east of Belize City. Several agencies, including the Police Department and the Coastguard have been investigating the scene and have made several trips to the caye since it was found. What is most unusual is that the police department has not disclosed any facts about the plane. What we have been able to verify is that several solar lamps which glow at night, were placed along a small and narrow landing strip to accommodate a night landing on Northern Two Caye. The plane crashed just south of the island and missed its mark. The island is home to a resort which is only open during the high tourist season and currently only a security guard for the resort was stationed on the island. A check at various airlines and the department of civil aviation indicates that no plane or pilot has been reported to be missing and no scheduled flight was expected to land on Northern Two Caye. So the first question to ask is "What happened to the pilot?" The police has just revealed today that a body was found floating near Lighthouse Reef in the sea near mangroves. The conclusion of that autopsy revealed that the Hispanic male was certified to have died from trauma shock due to multiple blunt and sharp object injuries. And if the connection between the floating body, and the plane can be established, then perhaps one more link can be made between them and an ice box that floated to the north end of Caye Caulker at nine a.m. on Sunday. On the eleventh, the police found a red ice box containing fourteen parcels wrapped in brown masking tape suspected to be compressed cocaine. But why have the police covered up the existence of the plane? Reporting for News Five, Jose Sanchez.

The other questions that linger are: Who owns the island and the resort? And has the security guard been questioned or taken into custody?

Channel 5

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Police admit that a plane was submerged on Lighthouse Reef Atoll

lighthouse reef 2On last night's newscast, News Five broke the story about a suspected drug plane that was found submerged in waters south of Northern Two Caye, in the Lighthouse Reef Atoll. On the same day the plane was discovered, last Friday, a body was floating in the sea. And two days later on Sunday April eleventh, a red cooler with fourteen parcels of suspected cocaine floated to the north end of Caye Caulker. No official release has been made by the Police Department and there may be more to the story than meets the eye. For starters, the post mortem conducted on the body, showed multiple injuries with sharp and blunt objects, meaning that the person, who remains unidentified did not drown. During a 'sit down' with the media this afternoon, Commissioner of Police, Crispin Jeffries, said that no official statement will be released about the plane because they don't want to compromise the investigation. But he did say is that both Mexican and U.S. currency were found on the body. We have also ascertained that there were no identification cards or Belizean currency on the deceased and Jeffries says that they are investigating whether or not the body is linked to the plane. At the time the plane was discovered, solar lamps, presumably used to accommodate a night landing, were observed along the airstrip. The only person on the island at the time was the security guard for a resort, which remains closed until the start of the high tourism season.

Channel 5

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Drug plane at Glovers Reef salvaged and looted

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Law enforcement agencies are trying to solve a mystery that occurred on Northern Two Caye area of the Glovers Reef Atoll, when a plane believed to have been carrying drugs crash-landed in shallow water behind the caye on Tuesday night, April 6. The plane and its cargo mysteriously disappeared from the area sometime du-ing Friday night, April 9.

When the recovery team went to the area on Saturday morning, April 10 to recover the plane the plane was nowhere to be found. It had vanished without a trace.

Police say they have launched an investigation to find out who removed the aircraft and its cargo, but won't explain why they left the aircraft unattended during the night.

A tour guide found the plane on April 6 while conducting a fly-fishing tour in the Northern Two Caye area with some tourists from Placencia.

When the police and Coast Guard came to the area, they searched for survivors, and found a dead man who has still not been identified. They also reportedly recovered a sealed, red ice chest packed with cocaine.

Reports from a reliable source have reached the Reporter that drugs were found board the plane. The Coast Guard were first on the scene, but so far the Coast Guard has not reported finding any drugs aboard the submerged plane and none have been turned over to the police.

Arrangements were made to lift the plane from the sea, but while the authorities worked out the logistics, the plane was secretly salvaged from the sea bed and moved.

Witnesses in the area who saw the plane during the three days it was in the sea said that it was a small white single-engine plane.

The engine had detached from the fuselage and was in deeper water some 20 feet away.

Fishermen passing the area around 10 o'clock Tuesday night, April 6, report seeing runway landing lights illuminating the private airstrip on the island.

It appears the plane overshot the runway and landed in the sea where it submerged at the southern tip of the island. Possibly it ran out of fuel, some say.

The Glovers Reef Atoll Resort which owns the island also operated and maintained the airstrip, but the resort ceased to function four years ago, and the area has been abandoned since.

All small aircraft operating in Belize have been accounted for, the Department of Civil Aviation announced, leading investigators to conclude that this was a drug plane arriving in Belize from Colombia.

An autopsy performed on the mysterious stranger whose body was found near the island showed cut marks indicating he had been murdered and possibly tortured. There was no water in his lungs, which ruled out drowning.

But the lifting of the aircraft from the sea during one night's operation suggest a well-financed, well co-ordinated salvage operation beyond the resources of the so-called drug pirates.

A check with Lieutenant Colonel Ganey Dortch,Chief of Staff of the Belize Defense Force, revealed that as far as he knew, the downed aircraft had not moved from where it was first sighted from the air by the BDF air wing, in the water close to the island.

The Reporter

Joined: Oct 2003
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Bloody Reporter can't get its facts straight or know their geography.


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