Mysterious cargo plane abandoned in Blue Creek
Monday, September 1, 2003

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.

THAT'S bizarre. News of the Weird seems to be the order of the day.

Mars is too close!! Those Marsians must be using old Russian planes as shuttles.

What a great story. Imagination can't keep up with reality. Remember 'Romancing the Stone'? Michael Douglas is in the crashed plane and says, 'Now THAT is what I call a fire!'

Mystery plane will be flown out

And turning from the sea to the
air, we are informed that the
mysterious cargo plane that
landed on a farm road near Blue
Creek last Friday has finally been
moved. Authorities engaged two
big tractors from the Mennonite
community to tow the twin-engine
aircraft a distance of about a half-mile up the road
and then onto a stretch of land that had been
prepared to hold its weight. News 5 understands that
the road will be widened and graded in order for the
Russian built plane to be flown out to the Philip
Goldson International. Unless claimed by its
owners--who are presumably cocaine smugglers--the
aircraft will become the property of the Government of
Belize. If turned over to the B.D.F., it would become
the nation's largest military aircraft. No one has been
arrested in connection with the landing, unloading and
subsequent abandoning of the plane.

Sounds like espionage.....
Call 007! He'll know what to do.

007 is currently on a mission in St. Louis...

can you imagine the payload?
somebody in the community could have easily gotten hurt or worse. No mystery where all the cargo will be headed - and that is really sad. It's sad for folks anywhere that have to be in the way of drug smugglers.
Oh well, the military ends up with a bigger plane.
Maybe they can use it to spot smugglers.

The future...BELIZE 1. Enjoy PM Musa.

Another coffee spit...

I can't keep saying I'm sorry when I HAVE to laugh.

What a vision that would have been, going up the road in Belize.
Many happy people that day, just seeing something like that, not the cargo