Drug Planes: They're Back!

After an interlude of almost 18 months, drug planes are again using illicit landing strips in central Honduras, even as Honduras completes is radar coverage.

In February 2014, Willaim Brownfield,  US State Department Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, told El Heraldo that drug flights had dropped off precipitously:

"In the last 12-18 months the number of traces, flights, that go to Honduras have enormously been reduced.  We are talking about a reduction of more than 80%."

That trend was still true as of May, 2015 when General Kelly of US Southern Command said drug flights in general were down all over, and that Honduras had dropped from first to fifth place as a destination for drug flights.

However, there were signs earlier that 2015 was not going to be like 2014.

In February, long before General Kelly's speech, the Honduran military allowed as how they were having trouble keeping up with clandestine landing strips in the Mosquitia.  As fast as the Honduran military would blow deep holes in them to stop planes from landing, the drug runners would fix them up.  One clandestine strip was destroyed on January 28, only to be usable again when visited on February 3 of this year.

In April of this year, a Brazilian newspaper revealed a new drug ring that was buying drugs from the FARC in Colombia, and loading it onto planes in Venezuela and flying it to Honduras.  From Honduras it was flown to Mexico for the Sinaloa cartel.  This seemed to be confirmed in May, when Honduran authorities found a Brazilian pilot with severe third degree burns in a hospital in Tocoa, Olancho the day after they found a crashed and burned drug plane in the Mosquitia.

But its not just the landing strips being renewed.  After a long absence, drug planes are crashing and being abandoned in Honduras again.  The crash in May was just the start.

On September 14, authorities found a burned plane in El Jobo, San Esteban, Olancho.  There was no landing strip here, just a broad expanse of flat land.  The plane was completely burned except for the tail section, and so far no identifying numbers were recovered from the crash.  Local residents reported hearing the plane crash the previous day.

On September 25, a plane with two pilots from Olancho, crashed and burned in Tripoli, La Masica, Atlantida, killing both pilots.  No drugs were found but a Mexican bank book, extra gas cans, and a satellite phone were found at the crash site.

Finally, on October 22, a plane crashed in La Cuarenta, Progreso, Yoro.  The plane, a US registered (N40212) Piper Aztec from 1973, is currently registered to an owner in Miami, Florida but will probably turn out to have been recently sold.  Locals said the plane attempted to land around 2 or 3 am that morning, but crashed.  Several vehicles were observed around the plane.  The crash was not reported to authorities until 6 am, by which time the pilot(s) and any cargo were long gone.  Found inside the plane were buoys, colored lanterns for a landing strip, gas cans, a portable pump, and an inflatable raft.

All this activity comes as Honduras prepares to install its third and final radar bought from Israel for $30 million.  Honduras bought these 3 radar systems explaining that they would put an aerial shield over Honduras.  Two were supposed to be small, directional radar systems and this new one, a mobile system that does full 360 degree scans.  In April, the military's commander, General Freddy Diaz said:

"With this equipment we will complete the oversight system which Honduras should have.  This radar is part of a system of equipment with capacity to cover all of the national territory and parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans."

But now he's saying its not enough:

"Its not sufficient, we need more radars for us to do a strict watch over all the airspace."

How Many Clandestine Airstrips?

The new math has come to the Armed Forces of Honduras!  If you follow the statements by the Honduran Armed Forces, you are forced to conclude that 24+26= 70

There are 70 clandestine drug airstrips known to the military in Honduras.  Think about it;  they know about 70 clandestine drug airfields, and haven't done anything about them.  When they first made this admission a few months ago it puzzled me.

If the enemy is using a resource, deny that resource to the enemy.  That seems obvious, right? Among the constitutionally assigned duties of the Honduran military is fighting drug trafficking.  So destroying those landing strips seems like an obvious tactic.

Why weren't they doing anything to destroy these airfields until now?

Now they're doing something.  As a recent New York Times article informs us, in association with the stationing of US military forces at four US built forward bases at Guanaja, Puerto Castilla, Aguacate, and Morocon, joint operations are now targeting the destruction of some of these airfields.

Three Honduran departments hold the majority of these airfields: 25 in Olancho, 15 in Colon, and 10 in El Paraiso.  In case you're counting, that adds up to 50 airfields, or roughly 71% of the total 70.

Notice that the Department of Gracias a Dios, bordering on Nicaragua, is not mentioned.  More about that later.

The Honduran military are working with a DEA FAST (Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team) team to now blow up airstrips, some of which have been known to the Honduran military for years.

Since the military love naming their projects, this one is called Operation Armadillo 2.  The second phase of Operation Armadillo 2 ended in April with the destruction of 17 clandestine airstrips.  How are they destroying the airstrips?  Helicopters fly teams from these forward bases to the airstrip, where US trainers guide Honduran Special Forces in the placement of 5 to 7 explosive charges to create craters in the runway.

The 17 destroyed airstrips were apparently in the department of Gracias a Dios.

Reading between the lines, it seems likely that the Honduran military lacked the explosives and expertise in using them, and that may, in part, account for their lack of action until now.

Honduran Joint Chiefs Chairman General Rene Osorio Canales told the Honduran press that the third phase of Operation Armadillo 2 was about to kick off, but he couldn't mention details.  He assured us that all of the known airfields will be destroyed by the end of 2012.

But the official spokesperson for the Defense Ministry, colonel Jeremías Arévalo Guifarro, has some different numbers.  He says that there are only 50 clandestine airfields known to the military, and that they have already destroyed 24 of them.  The other 26, according to Colonel Arévalo Guifarro, are scheduled for destruction.

So which is it?  50 total airfields, as Arévalo Guifarro claims, or the 70 that the Armed Forces previously announced?  17 airfields destroyed as reported by General Osorio Canales, or 24 as reported by Colonel Arévalo Guifarro?

While Osorio Canales assures us that all of the known clandestine airfields will be destroyed by the end of 2012, Arévalo Guifarro says 50 of them will be destroyed.

It seems pertinent to point out that Colonel Arévalo Guifarro is the same spokesman who seemed out of touch in reporting on the "forced" landing of a drug plane in Yoro a few days ago.

Still, I find myself left with a question. These are grass-covered dirt landing strips build in remote areas by labor organized by the drug traffickers long before airplanes could land there.  Why can't they just fill in the holes in the same way that they created the airfield? or level the terrain adjacent to the existing landing strip in the same way they created it in the first place?  Isn't this just a game of Whack A Mole?

The drug traffickers almost certainly can restore these airfields, so without a program of continued surveillance of these locations this is just an inconvenience for them.

The only clear enduring product of this campaign is Armed Forces PR. And they can't even get their math straight.

Drug Plane "Forced" to Land!?

On Tuesday the Honduran newspapers were full of a story that seemed to involve helicopters or maybe fixed wing aircraft  intercepting and forcing a drug plane to crash-land in Yoro.

More details have appeared in the press today, enough to call into question parts of the story.

The official story on offer by spokespeople for the Air Force in Honduras (unnamed) is that two helicopters (or maybe fixed wing aircraft) of theirs intercepted and followed a Cessna 310R aircraft with a Venezuelan tail number.

According to the official story, the plane was forced to land, and attempted to use a rural road previously used by drug aircraft as a landing strip, but struck some tree branches and ended up wrecked, in pieces, alongside the road. A bad enough crash to wreck the plane, but not severely injure the pilot.

The military helicopters (or fixed wing aircraft), instead of landing, or reporting the event to the nearest authorities on the ground, flew back to their base, and it wasn't until the next morning when residents of the area found the aircraft and called the police that someone came out to the "crash" site to investigate.

By then the lone pilot, and his cargo, were long gone.

Residents of the area report that the plane, which landed around 11 PM Monday night, was met by strangers in cars who unloaded the plane and left in the direction of Jocon, Yoro.

These details make it seem clear that the plane, tail number YV1440, intended to land on this road. It was met by people prepared to offload the pilot and any cargo.  You don't organize such a project at the drop of a hat.  It had to be pre-arranged.

So if this aircraft always meant to land there, where's the "force"? We've seen photos of many wrecked planes that attempted to land on rural Honduran roads, all without military intervention.

As of Tuesday afternoon the official spokesperson for the Honduran Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Jeremias Arevalo, knew nothing of the event, according to La Tribuna.

So what part of this story is true?

Well, there is a Cessna 310R, tail number YV1440, lying in pieces next to a road in Yoro.

According to a website that tracks flight plans, that tail number belongs to a Cessna 182 Skylane from Venezuela, which clearly is not the plane pictured in Yoro, which is a Cessna 310R.

An airplane with the listed tail number that does match the one on the side of the road in Yoro shows up in this ad from Venezuela, for sale for about $230,000, offered by a Miguel Angel Gonzalez in Venezuela.  The phone number listed is that of the Restaurant White, a Mediterranean-style restaurant in Caracas, Venezuela.

It seems clear from the photos in the Honduran newspapers and on the website offering the plane for sale that the two planes are one and the same.  Same paint job, same configuration, but with all the seats, except for that of the pilot, removed.

Maybe some Air Force helicopters or planes intercepted this Cessna and followed it for a while, but it seems unlikely they actually forced it down.

Judging from the reception party waiting, it always intended to land there, or somewhere nearby, or there would not have been cars ready to pick up the pilot and cargo and spirit them away.

What about the lack of reporting the plane back to anybody on the ground?  This leads me to believe that at best, the Honduran Air Force intercepted and chased the plane (which flies slowly, top speed about 220 MPH), but lost it before it landed, as some reports stated on Tuesday.

Someone seems to have felt the need to make up a better story: but on the face of it, this is another in a series of unchallenged flights using small planes treated as essentially disposable-- presumably transporting drugs.

The continued inability of the Honduran Air Force to actually do anything about this traffice casts General Rene Osorio's recent statements about shooting down drug planes into a different light. Presumably, his subordinates would report it if they shot one down.

Then again...