ABC News: CIA plane down in El Salvador (1984)

[hadrons]

Run time: 02:17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Y64Au2eqc   Posted on YouTube: December 23, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: December 23, 2008 By DU Member: hadrons Views on DU: 699

 
Conflicting reports on whether it crashed or was shot down, but 3 CIA employees died.

[bananas]

1. k&r nt

[bananas]

2. The denials were amazing.

IIRC, they kept denying it was a CIA plane, until Nicaragua put the pilot on tv.
When the story about Israel trading arms with Iran broke, I forgot exactly what Reagan said, but the Israeli PM responded by saying that if Reagan didn't own up to his part in it, Israel would release all the documents showing exactly what was going on. He might've said that on on Nightline, not sure. The next day, Reagan admitted that he asked Israel to act as the middle-man.

[sce56]

4. I think you have it confused with another shoot down over Nicaragua, Not El Salvador

Eugene Hasenfus sits among the weapons captured from his downed cargo plane. His Sandinista captors surround him.
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a100586hasenfus

CIA C-123 transport plane (see November 19, 1985) is shot down in southern Nicaragua by a Sandinista soldier wielding a surface-to-air missile. The transport plane left an airfield in El Salvador with arms and other supplies intended for the Nicaraguan Contras. Three crew members—US pilots William Cooper and Wallace Sawyer, Jr, and an unidentified Latin American—die in the crash, but one, a “cargo kicker” named Eugene Hasenfus, ignores CIA orders and parachutes to safety—and capture by the Sandinistas. Hasenfus is a construction worker from Wisconsin who signed on to do temporary work with CIA contractors, and has no intention of “going down with the plane.” The next day, newspapers around the world run stories with Hasenfus’s face peering out from their front pages.
Reveals US's Arming of Contras - The Hasenfus shoot-down will break the news of the Reagan administration’s secret arming of the Contras in their attempt to bring down the democratically elected Socialist government of Nicaragua.

[bananas]

5. Yes, that's the one, thanks.

Merry Christmas!

[wildbilln864]

3. k&r! Thanks for this post. nt