Four dead in US military-contracted plane crash in southern Philippines

A light aircraft crashed in the southern Philippines on Thursday, killing four people, including a U.S. serviceman and three defense contractors. The plane went down in a rice field in the south.

The U.S. Embassy and Philippine officials have confirmed that all those on board perished in the crash. The incident occurred in a farming area near Ampatuan town on Mindanao island. The U.S. military stated in a statement that the aircraft was contracted by the military and was conducting intelligence and surveillance support missions at the time.

Amir Jihad Tim Ambolodto, a security official in southern Maguindanao province, said that four bodies had been recovered from the wreckage and that initial assessments indicated the deceased were foreign nationals. The identities of the victims have not yet been confirmed.

Regional police spokesman, Jopi Ventura, stated that the plane struck and killed a water buffalo during the crash. He added that the crash site has been cordoned off and police and soldiers have been deployed to prevent potential tampering with evidence.

Wendy Bitti, a provincial disaster mitigation official, said that residents reported seeing the plane emitting smoke and hearing an explosion before it crashed to the ground less than a kilometer from a cluster of farmhouses. The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines has confirmed the small plane crash in southern Maguindanao province. Police have stated that the cause of the fixed-wing aircraft crash has not yet been determined.

Small numbers of U.S. troops regularly conduct short-term rotational deployments in the Philippines. The U.S. military has been assisting Philippine forces with intelligence to combat militants linked to the Islamic State group, who remain active in Mindanao. Police confirmed the tail number of the aircraft as N349CA, which, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware, is registered to the defense company Metrea and the aircraft model is a Beechcraft Super King Air B300.

Metrea's website describes the company as "a leading provider of effects-as-a-service to national security partners across multiple domains, with operations spanning a dozen mission areas."