One US service member and three defense contractors were killed when a surveillance flight crashed in the southern Philippines on Thursday.
The aircraft was conducting a routine mission ‘providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support at the request of our Philippine allies’ when it crashed in a rice field, the US Indo-Pacific Command said.
‘On February 6, 2025, an aircraft contracted by the U.S. Department of Defense crashed in the Philippine Province of Maguindanao del Sur,’ US Indo-Pacific Command said.
‘The aircraft was providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support at the request of our Philippine allies. The incident occurred during a routine mission in support of US-Philippine security cooperation activities.
‘We can confirm no survivors of the crash. There were four personnel on board, including one US military service member and three defense contractors. The names of the crew are being withheld pending next of kin notification.
The bodies of the four people were retrieved from the wreckage in Ampatuan town, said Ameer Jehad Tim Ambolodto, a safety officer of Maguindanao del Sur. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines also confirmed the crash of a light plane in Maguindanao del Sur province.
Windy Beaty, a provincial disaster-mitigation officer, told The Associated Press that she received reports that residents saw smoke coming from the plane and heard an explosion before the aircraft plummeted to the ground about half a mile from a cluster of farmhouses.
One US service member and three defense contractors were killed when a surveillance flight crashed in the Philippines
Indo-Pacific Command said the names of the crew were being withheld pending family notifications. The cause of the crash remains under investigation
No injuries were reported on or near the crash site, which was cordoned off by troops, Beaty said.
A water buffalo on the ground was killed as a result of the plane crash, local officials said.
US forces have been deployed in a Philippine military camp in the country’s south for decades to help provide advice and training to Filipino forces battling Muslim militants.
The region is the homeland of minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
A flurry of naval drills surrounding the Philippines involving the United States and its partners has prompted complaints from Beijing, which claims the entire South China Sea and accused Manila of colluding with others to destabilize the region.
On Wednesday, the US 7th Fleet based in Japan said forces from Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and the US conducted a ‘multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity’ within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone.
Such drills ‘strengthen the interoperability of our defense/armed forces doctrines, tactics, techniques, and procedures,’ the fleet said in a news release.
The maneuvers were taking place within the Philippines’ zone, but the fleet gave no details on the exact location.
Meanwhile, Tian Junli, spokesperson for China’s Southern Theater Command, accused the Philippines of ‘colluding with outside countries to organize ‘so-called joint patrols’, which he said ‘destabilize the region,’ Chinese state media said on Thursday.
Naval drills surrounding the Philippines involving the United States have prompted complaints from China. Philippine and US military jets fly over the South China Sea on Tuesday (pictured)
Tian said the Philippines’ actions were ‘an attempt to endorse its ‘illegal claims’ in the South China Sea and ‘undermine China’s maritime rights and interests.’
He specifically pointed to US-Philippines joint patrols on Tuesday and said China had carried out its own patrols in the region on Wednesday.
The Philippines crash comes after an American Airlines jet collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter on January 29, killing all 67 people involved, in Washington, DC.
The Black Hawk Army helicopter was conducting a training flight when it struck the regional jet.
