Word: planes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...base, on the outskirts of San Salvador. The camouflaged Viet Nam-era C-123K air transport, with Panamanian registration HPF821, lifted off late Sunday morning with four crewmen aboard, droned south over the Pacific Ocean, then headed east near the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border. About 60 miles inland, the plane veered northeast toward the Nicaraguan garrison town of San Carlos. According to Nicaraguan accounts, as the craft dropped down to 2,500 ft. and prepared to discharge its cargo, a 19-year-old Sandinista soldier, José Fernando Corales Aleman, raised his shoulder-held, Soviet-made ground-to-air missile launcher...
...shooting down of the plane touched off a round of recriminations between Washington and Managua. "We now have Americans dying in Mr. Reagan's dirty war," said the Foreign Ministry's Bendaña. In Washington, Administration officials insisted that the arms drop was a "private" matter they knew nothing about. Said State Department Spokesman Charles Redman: "The U.S. Government had no connections with the flight, the plane, the crew or the cargo." Declared Kathy Pherson, spokeswoman for the CIA: "The guy doesn't work for us, and CIA is not involved. There are congressional restrictions on assistance to the contras...
...seemed highly unlikely that the American adventurers could have obtained the help of El Salvador, the beneficiary this year of about $500 million in federal aid, without the knowledge and consent of U.S. officials. Salvadoran President José Napoleón Duarte formally denied that the plane had taken off from San Salvador. But it has long been an open secret that the Salvadoran air base at Ilopango is a major supply point for the contras...
...doubt that the plane had CIA connections was dispelled by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which confirmed late in the week that the aircraft had been used in a sophisticated 1984 sting operation designed to show that Sandinista officials were involved in the international drug trade. Hidden cameras installed in the plane by the CIA filmed a Nicaraguan Interior Ministry official loading sacks of cocaine into the cargo hold. Last March, President Reagan showed a still photo of the sting operation to a nationwide TV audience during speech advocating resumption of U.S. military aid to the contras...
...controversial head of a Phoenix-based group called the World Anti-Communist League, which raises money to support anti-Communist insurgents around the world. A frequent visitor to El Salvador, Singlaub is said to have helped the contras buy arms, but he denies any connection to the downed plane or its unfortunate crew...