Security elements among 7 dead in plane crash in Zacatecas

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

Seven individuals including four Mexican federal police agents were killed in an aircraft crash midday Tuesday in Zacatecas state, according to Mexican news accounts.

A news report which appeared in the onlone edition of El Siglo de Durango news daily said that the aircraft was taking off from Zacetacas airport in Zacatecas when the pilot radioed he was returning to the airport.  The aircraft was bound for Mexico City. 

The aircraft crashed in Morelos municipality just ten minutes after takeoff near an area called Noria de Gringos.  The aircraft crashed just a few kilometers from General Leobardo C. Ruiz International Airport in Calera municipality.

The agents were due to return to Mexico City Monday night at around 2255 hrs, but the aircraft was forced to return to the airport because of an unspecified mechanical problem.  The aircraft took off at 1200 hrs on Tuesday, but then crashed.

Among the dead were Antonio Andres Alvarez Mota, a ministerial agent with the Ministerio Publico de la Federacion  and affiliated with the Subprocuraduria Especializada en Investigacion en contra de la Delincuencia Organizada (SEIDO) or organized crime bureau of the Procuraduria General de la Republic (PGR), the Mexican national attorney general’s office.

Also reported dead were two Policia Federal (PF) ministerial agents  Ricardo Martín Flores Benitez and Francisco Leonardo Niño Acevedo.  Another PF ministerial agent assigned to Zacatecas, Martín Antonio Gutierrez Cantu, also died in the crash.

Also dead were the pilot, Guillermo Flores Millan, the copilot Juan Manuel Garcia Bernal and a mechanic, Miguel Angel Guerrero Coliev.

The aircraft was a 1985 Kingair 300 twin engine turboprop, which belonged to the PGR.

According to the El Siglo de Durango report, the ministerial agents were in Zacatecas state to serve an arrest warrant for three alleged Los Zetas operatives identified as Juan Luis Gallegos Muro, Fernando Rodríguez Robles Zaldivar and Anacleto Flores.  The three alleged drug cartel members were sent to Centro de Reinsercion Social (CERESO) in Cieneguillas.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political new for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com