A United States National Guard helicopter crashed this Friday afternoon near the border between Texas and Mexico, killing
two soldiers and a Border Patrol agent
.
The fourth crew member of the aircraft was seriously injured.
The accident occurred in La Grulla, a small town in Starr County, in the sector of the Rio Grande (River Bravo in Mexico), as confirmed by Chris Olivarez, spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, to television station
KXAN
.
The aircraft, model UH-72 Lakota, was
supporting joint federal government military operations
with the United States Border Patrol.
Specifically, according to official information, she was
assigned to the federal border support mission in the southwest
.
It was also stated that the accident occurred at 2:50 p.m. (local time), although the names of the people who lost their lives were not detailed because the next of kin had not yet been notified.
The cause of the accident, added information from Joint Task Force North, was under investigation.
The helicopter was not part of Operation Lone Star, initiated by the governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, in 2021 to increase border security, which has also deployed several aircraft to monitor the border.
A similar accident occurred in early February in Colombia, where a helicopter of that country's National Army crashed on the way to an air base on the border with Panama, killing four people, while three others were injured.
Video
The episode, which occurred near a Colombian air base located in the municipality of Unguía, also left three people injured.
The UH-60 Black Hawk aircraft of the Aviation Mobility and Maneuver Battalion No. 7, with registration EJC 2188, "suffered an accident" when "it was carrying out an air movement internal cargo operation to the Cuti Binational Military Base", located in the Colombian municipality of Unguía (northwest), about 15 kilometers from Panama.
The area where the helicopter fell is a stronghold of the Gulf Clan, the main drug trafficking organization in Colombia, which also controls the land passage to Panama through the dangerous Darién Gap jungle, according to Colombian authorities.
The next day, another helicopter accident claimed the life of Sebastián Piñera.
The former Chilean president, 74, died when the helicopter he was piloting fell into the water and he was unable to unbuckle his seat belt.
The three people traveling with him survived.
With information from EFE.
IS