US military plane crashes in the Philippines killing all on-board

Details of the doomed “surveillance” mission a US military plane was undertaking in the Philippines have been revealed as authorities continue to investigate the crash.

The US military were operating in the Philippines at the time of this week’s tragic plane crash due to an ongoing commitment to help train and advise local forces on how to combat Muslim militants.

On Friday a small plane contracted by the US Defence Department crashed into a rice field in the southern Philippines, killing all four people on board including one US service member.

A water buffalo grazing on the ground was also killed as a result of the impact.

US troops have had a little known presence in the southern Philippines for decades.

Wreckage of the plane in a rice field in Maguindanao del Sur province, Philippines. Picture: Sam Mala/UGC via AP

While most Filipinos are Roman Catholic, the region where the plane crashed is home to a Muslim minority and extremists often cause trouble for the local population.

“The aircraft was providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support at the request of our Philippine allies,” the Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement about the crash on Mindanao island on Thursday.

US troops stand next to a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) during live fire exercises as part of US-Philippines army-to-army joint drills. Picture: Getty Images

“The incident occurred during a routine mission in support of US-Philippine security co-operation activities.”
The victims were not immediately identified pending notification of their families.
“We can confirm no survivors of the crash,” the statement said.
Small numbers of American troops are put on short-term rotational deployments in the Philippines, where the US military has helped provide intelligence to troops battling militants linked to the Islamic State group that remain active on Mindanao.

Officials say a US military-contracted plane crashed in a rice field in the southern Philippine. Picture: Sam Mala/UGC via AP

The Philippine military said in a statement it could not release information about the crash as the matter was classified and an investigation was ongoing.

Regional police spokesman Jopy Ventura told AFP that officers had not yet determined the cause of the fixed-wing aircraft’s crash on a farm near the municipality of Ampatuan.

Police and soldiers were deployed to the site to prevent potential tampering with evidence, the spokesman said.

A US military service member and three defence contractors were killed in the tragedy.

The cause of the crash has yet to be determined.

The plane’s tail number, identified by police as N349CA, was registered to defence firm Metrea, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware, which identified it as a Beechcraft Super King Air B300.

The Metrea website describes the company as a “leading provider of effects-as-a-service to national security partners across multiple domains and over a dozen mission areas”.

Municipal rescuer Rhea Martin told AFP her team had found four dead bodies at the crash site.

“The bodies were found near the plane,” she told AFP, adding: “The plane was cut in half.”

Originally published as US military plane crashes in the Philippines killing all on-board