US surveillance plane crashes in southern Philippines

An aircraft contracted by the U.S. Department of Defense crashed in the southern Philippines, killing all four people on board including a member of the military, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a news release.

The aircraft, identified by police as a Beechcraft King Air 300, crashed Thursday afternoon in Maguindanao del Sur province.

The U.S. military command said in a statement that the plane was “providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support at the request of our Philippine allies.

“The incident occurred during a routine mission in support of U.S.-Philippine security cooperation activities.”

One U.S. military member and three defense contractors died in the crash, the statement said. The command withheld the names and did not list the nationalities of the three contractors pending notification of next of kin.

The airplane crashed in a rice field in Barangay Malatimon, Maguindanao. Residents heard an explosion and saw smoke billowing from the plane before it came down, the Associated Press news agency said.

The King Air 300 is a twin-engine turboprop often used by military and law enforcement authorities to conduct search and rescue, reconnaissance and surveillance, as well as other special operations.

It is designed and manufactured by Beechcraft Augsburg, a subsidiary of U.S. aircraft company Textron Aviation.

U.S. military personnel with an intelligence unit have been deployed in the southern Philippines to help local forces fighting against Muslim militants.

In 2017, with intelligence support provided by U.S. military aircraft, the Philippine government successfully ended a five-month siege by Islamic State militants in the southern city of Marawi.

Radio Free Asia staff in Taipei contributed to this report.