On October 5th 2013, a de Havilland Dash Candada DHC-8 with six aboard left the city of Balboa, Panama, at 10:45 pm; it was over Acandi, Choco Province Colombia when it crashed on a drug interdiction mission.
Five Americans and one Panamanian were aboard. The crash occurred in an area where the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas and drug-trafficking gangs are in conflict, in a sector of Acandi Township, on the border between Colombia and Panama in a remote, jungle region of northern Colombia. Three American contractors and a Panamanian National Guardsman, Lt. Lloyd Nunez, were killed. Two surviving Americans were severely injured. The surveillance is part of the Salas Becker agreement between Panama and the US, which shares Panamanian drug patrol surveillance.
Reports say that the vehicle lost radio contact with the U.S.-sponsored multinational task force in Key West that runs the operation. The plane was equipped with surveillance instrumentation.
Witnesses heard a loud explosion. Two Americans survived the crash with injuries including multiple bone fractures and burns.
The two wounded were transferred to Carepa in Antioquia and will be moved to the Military Hospital of Bogota at St Vincent hospital de Paul or the Hospital of Pablo Tobon Uribe.
