From Sky News UK

Three Americans and a Panamanian are killed during a mission tracking a suspected smuggling vessel over the Caribbean.5:57pm UK, Sunday 06 October 2013

Three American contractors have died after a small plane on a US counter-drug mission crashed in a jungle region of Colombia.

A Panamanian National Guardsman also died and two other Americans, who were also on board, were seriously injured with multiple bone fractures and burns over 40% of their bodies.

The Dash 8 – which is equipped with surveillance instruments – was tracking a suspected smuggling vessel along with a Colombian vessel over the western Caribbean when it went down near Capurgana, close to the border with Panama.

The twin-engine turboprop plane lost radio contact with the US sponsored task force JIATF-South in Florida that runs drug interdiction in region, said its spokeswoman, Jody Drives.

Ms Drives said the American contractors aboard were under a US Air Force contract and flew out of Panama.

The plane was contracted to provide detection and monitoring of drug trafficking routes in the coastal region of Central America.

The two injured Americans were rescued by Colombian soldiers and taken to a hospital in the capital, Bogota, US Southern Command said in a statement.

Their names were withheld pending notification of next of kin.

General Nicasio de Jesus Martinez, commander of the Colombian army’s Brigade IV whose troops travelled to the accident scene, ruled out the possibility that the plane was shot down by rebels active in Colombia.

“There was no aggression, no impact,” said Gen Martinez, adding that it was too soon to know if the crash was caused by mechanical failure, human error or the weather.

The region where it crashed is mountainous jungle and rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, operate there along with drug traffickers.

PHOTOS: Plane wreckage at the site of the crash

The plane crashed in a remote jungle area

The plane crashed in northern Colombia

For more on this story go to:

http://news.sky.com/story/1150929/plane-crash-four-die-in-anti-drug-operation