Helicopter accident kills 16 police officers in Colombia

[IceWizard]

Wed Aug 5, 2015 2:56am EDT

[b]BOGOTA (Reuters)[/by -
Sixteen policemen died on Tuesday when a helicopter likely crashed into the side of mountain in a wooded region of
northwestern Colombia, Defense Minister Luis
Carlos Villegas said.

The U.S.-made UH-60 Black Hawk may have
crashed because of bad weather or a
mechanical failure while taking part in a counter-narcotics operation in the department of Antioquia some 450 km northeast (280 miles) of the capital, Bogota.

The incident is under investigation, he said. "For now the most probable hypothesis is that
the helicopter crashed against the side of the
mountain, possibly due to low cloud cover,"
Villegas told reporters in Bogota.

The accident came four days after 11 soldiers
died when a Spanish-made CASA C-235
suffered motor failure and crashed in the
northeast of the country.

The policemen killed on Tuesday were taking
part in a crackdown on a criminal gang of
former right-wing paramilitaries known as Clan
Usuga. The head of the group, Dario Antonio Usuga, alias "Otoniel," leads 2,000 men.

The United States is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his capture.

"There were three helicopters in the operation,
and the other two didn't hear any shots fired
apart from those from the three helicopters (in
the operation)," Villegas said. Colombia's security forces have dozens of Black
Hawk helicopters that are used in the
government's offensive against leftist guerrillas, criminal gangs and drug traffickers.


(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by
Brian Ellsworth and Helen Murphy; Editing by
Frances Kerry and Steve Orlofsky)