A US National Guard helicopter crashed this Friday afternoon near the Texas-Mexico border, causing the death of two soldiers and a border police agent. The fourth member of the plane’s crew was seriously injured.
The accident occurred in La Grulla, a town in Starr County, in the Rio Grande sector (Bravo River in Mexico), as Chris Olivarez, spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, confirmed on television. KXAN.
The aircraft, model UH-72 Lakota, was support the military operations of the federal government in collaboration with the US Border Patrol. Specifically, according to official information, it was assigned to the Federal Border Support Mission in the Southwest.
It was also specified that the accident occurred at 2.50pm (local time), although the names of the people who lost their lives were not detailed because the next of kin had not yet been informed. The cause of the crash, Joint Task Force North information added, is under investigation.
The helicopter was not part of Operation Lone Star, launched by Texas Governor Greg Abbott in 2021 to increase border security, which also deployed several aircraft to monitor the border.
A similar incident occurred in early February in Colombia, where a helicopter from the country’s National Army crashed while en route to an air base on the border with Panama, killing four people, while three others were injured.
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The episode, which occurred near a Colombian air base located in the municipality of Unguía, also injured three people.
The UH-60 Black Hawk aircraft of the Aviation Mobility and Maneuver Battalion No. 7, with registration EJC 2188, “suffered an accident” while “it was carrying out an internal air cargo operation at the binational military base of Cuti”, located in the Colombian municipality of Unguía (northwest), about 15 kilometers from Panama.
The area where the helicopter crashed is a stronghold of the Gulf Clan, the main drug trafficking organization in Colombia, which also controls land passage to Panama through the dangerous Darién Gap jungle, according to Colombian authorities.
The next day, another helicopter crash took the life of Sebastián Piñera. The 74-year-old former Chilean president died when the helicopter he was piloting fell into the water and he was unable to unfasten his seatbelt. The three people traveling with him survived.
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Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.