US Navy jet violates Venezuela airspace
| Published: Wednesday, 21 May, 2008, 02:16 AM Doha Time |
WASHINGTON: A US Navy surveillance jet lost its way during a counter-drug mission and strayed into Venezuelan airspace, US officials said on Monday following a vehement Venezuelan protest.
Venezuelan Defence Minister Gustavo Rangel called the overflight “a deliberate action” and “another link in a chain of provocations.”
Rangel said the Venezuelan air defense system tracked the S-3 Viking over the Venezuelan island of La Orchila on Saturday at 8:40pm (0010 GMT Sunday).
The island is a military base and a presidential retreat that lies in the Caribbean just north of the Venezuelan mainland.
The US, responding hours later, portrayed the incident as an inadvertent incursion into Venezuelan airspace.
“A US S-3 aircraft conducting counter-drugs operations lost navigational situational awareness causing it to fly into Venezuelan airspace off the mainland coast,” the Joint Interagency Task Force South said in a statement.
The aircraft was assigned to the military-led task force, which directs US counter-drug operations in the Caribbean from its headquarters in Key West, Florida.
Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said the S-3 aircrew was queried by Venezuelan air traffic control at Maiquetia after experiencing “intermittent navigational problems” while on a mission originating in Curacao.
The US Air Force operates a base for US counter-drug operations in Curacao, one of the Netherlands Antilles near Venezuela. – AFP
Venezuelan Defence Minister Gustavo Rangel called the overflight “a deliberate action” and “another link in a chain of provocations.”
Rangel said the Venezuelan air defense system tracked the S-3 Viking over the Venezuelan island of La Orchila on Saturday at 8:40pm (0010 GMT Sunday).
The island is a military base and a presidential retreat that lies in the Caribbean just north of the Venezuelan mainland.
The US, responding hours later, portrayed the incident as an inadvertent incursion into Venezuelan airspace.
“A US S-3 aircraft conducting counter-drugs operations lost navigational situational awareness causing it to fly into Venezuelan airspace off the mainland coast,” the Joint Interagency Task Force South said in a statement.
The aircraft was assigned to the military-led task force, which directs US counter-drug operations in the Caribbean from its headquarters in Key West, Florida.
Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said the S-3 aircrew was queried by Venezuelan air traffic control at Maiquetia after experiencing “intermittent navigational problems” while on a mission originating in Curacao.
The US Air Force operates a base for US counter-drug operations in Curacao, one of the Netherlands Antilles near Venezuela. – AFP