A member of the American service and 3 defense contractors were killed in a small plane crash in the Philippines

Officials said that a member of the United States service and three defense contractors died after a small plane crashed in the Philippines on Thursday.

Public affairs in the US Pacific said in a press statement that the plane was “providing intelligence, monitoring and reconnaissance” at the request of the allies in the Philippines. “It was a routine mission” to support security cooperation activities in the Philippines. “The member of the service and defense contractors were the only people on board.

The plane crashed into the rice field near Ambanan, a small municipality in the Magyndanao Del Sur Province.

The matter said that the reason for the crash was under investigation.

Windy Beaty, a regional disaster relief officer, told the Associated Press that it had received reports that the population saw smoke coming from the plane and heard an explosion before the plane fell to the Earth less than a kilometer (about half a mile) of a group of masses of farms.

Four bodies from the site have been recovered. No one was on the ground, but killed the water buffalo in the accident.

The matter said, the identity of the service member and contractors was not identified after the next standard notifications.

American forces were deployed in a military camp in the Philippines in the south of the country for decades to help provide advice and training to the Philippine forces fighting Muslim militants, according to Associated Press. The region is the homeland of the Muslims of minorities in the Roman Catholic nation.