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For the past two days, there have been numerous reports coming out of Orange Walk that earlier in the week –a suspicious plane suspected to be carrying drugs had landed in the Blue Creek area in the Orange Walk District on Tuesday evening. Today 7News asked Police Commissioner Crispin Jeffries about the report and he said they had heard the same thing – that a plane – he would not say that it is a drug plane – had made a crash landing somewhere in the Orange Walk District. But he says police have not been able to confirm any such event and so at this time, they are treating it as an unconfirmed report. Following a handing over at the US Embassy in Belmopan we asked Minister of National Security Carlos Perdomo for comment.

Hon. Carlos Perdomo, Minister of National Security
“That area close to the Mexican border always has sightings, sometimes we don’t know if they landed on the Belize side or on the Mexican side. Also the Guatemalan border close to Mexico is also in that, I call it the tri-country borderline inland. So they are pursuing it and I don’t know of any update so far.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“What do you know exactly transpired? Did the plane land in Belize?”

Hon. Carlos Perdomo,
“That is what we went to the check. The Defender, the BDF Defender was in the air to see if they could find it and the ground forces have to check under possible hiding places or we look at any legal or illegal airstrips, we look for anybody that might have a hangar or a bigger building where they can hide things like that.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“Was there any evidence that a plane had landed?”

Hon. Carlos Perdomo,
“No evidence. We just responded to the sighting, that it was coming in that particular area but once they come down from human sight you don’t know exactly where and they usually travel low.”

A Belize Defence Force spokesperson today told us that they received the same report on Wednesday that a plane went down in the Encalada Area of Blue Creek, near the Mexican border. The BDF dispatched an airplane to conduct an aerial search of the area and it found nothing. That search was repeated today, and again, nothing was seen. That BDF spokesperson confirmed that checks with Civil Aviation showed that no legal flights had issued any distress calls in Belizean territory.