Officers assigned to the Canas cantonal detachment of Fuerza Publica, the national police force of Costa Rica, rushed to the scene of a reported aircraft that crashed in Guanacaste on Sunday afternoon. Initial reports and pictures of the aviation accident were posted by Minister of Public Safety Celso Gamboa Sanchez on his Twitter feed. Further reporting by national newspaper La Nacion explains that the small plane may have been involved in a drug smuggling operation when pilots lost control shortly after taking off from a clandestine runway concealed among sugar cane fields.

 

Witnesses of the crash explained that they saw various individuals wearing hooded sweatshirts emerge from the aircraft unscathed and carrying square bundles wrapped in a material that resembled burlap, at least from a distance. A 4×4 sports utility vehicle approached the site of the accident and the crash survivors jumped in with their suspicious cargo before speeding away.

 

UPDATE: The OIJ reports that field agents assigned to the Canas canton have located 330 kilograms of cocaine packed into square bundles that match the description given by witnesses. The bundles were located in Lajas, a remote Guanacaste community in the heart of San Miguel de Cañas, an  important agricultural region. It is believed that this cargo was part of the payload of the crashed Cessna since Lajas is a 20-minute drive from the site. No arrests have been made as of this uodate.

 

By the time Fuerza Publica officers arrived, the crew of the crashed Cessna was nowhere to be found. However, a small pick-up truck was located nearby; its sole cargo consisting of empty fuel containers. In the absence of a flight manifest, Red Cross medical rescue technicians combed the thick sugar cane fields looking for survivors as aircraft from Vigilancia Aerea (Air Surveillance) took off from their operational air fields to initiate an investigation.

 

The Cessna aircraft, which was painted white with red and grey stripes arranged in a wavy pattern, crashed in a sector known to attract drug smugglers. In fact, this sector is not far from the finca (farmland) where drug enforcement agents arrested five Costa Rican men and a Mexican national as they handled 400 kilograms of cocaine hydrochloride in powder form. That finca was alleged to belong to the family of socialite, reality television star and electronic dance music DJ Paris Hilton. Notwithstanding, Miss Hilton has emphatically denied such ownership and has stated that her family is not involved in international drug smuggling.

 

It is interesting to note that the reported registration number of the Cessna, N756SZ, corresponds to a TU206G Skywagon once exported to Finland and deregistered in Belgium. This information is available from the registry kept by the United States Federal Aviation Administration; however, smugglers operating in Costa Rica have been known to assign fake deregistered numbers to aircraft they use for nefarious purposes.