Plane supposed to fly Evo Morales out of Bolivia in 2019 was attacked by missile – book

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A new book by Mexico’s President López Obrador includes a document that recounts the tensions that followed the resignation and flight of the Bolivian president and brought to power the now-imprisoned Jeanine Áñez.

In Bolivia, a rocket launcher was used to shoot down the plane that was supposed to depose Bolivian President Evo Morales, supposedly as part of a coup led by Jeanine Áñez and the Bolivian opposition.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Bolivia

Now, members of the Mexican Air Force in charge of the plane that Morales used to leave the country on his flight to Mexico have revealed that the plane was attacked on takeoff with a projectile allegedly fired from Chimoré Air Base in Cochabamba.

The military admitted that they had to maneuver to avoid this.

This fact is “recorded in Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s new book, which contains fragments of a document from the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) that reveals the moments of tension and threats against the Bolivian president when he was leaving his country for Mexico in November 2019 after the coup against him,” reports the RT news agency.

The book reports that when the plane carrying Morales took off, a member of the Bolivian armed forces fired at the plane with a bazooka launcher after minutes of maneuvering to prevent the takeoff and attacks by the Bolivian military on Mexican soldiers.

“During the initial climb, from the left side of the cockpit and when nearly 1,500 feet above the ground, the pilot observed a luminous tail similar to that of a missile at the seven o’clock position (behind, to the left of the aircraft’s flight path) below the horizon,” the document states.

HOW TO AVOID IMPACT

The Mexican Air Force officer, realizing that the attack could come from the air base, made a “tight turn” to the other side of the projectile’s trajectory and “increased the rate of climb to avoid impact.”

The track left by the projectile was “well below the aircraft’s altitude” and “parabolic toward the ground without having reached the flight level of about 3,000 feet.”

The document states that the events were not communicated to the crew “so as not to increase the tension of the diplomatic mission” that wanted to “rescue the ex-president and grant him asylum in Mexico.”

BEATINGS AND THREATS

When the FAM plane arrived at the airport in Bolivia, armed uniforms were on the scene and permission to take off was denied at the last minute, forcing the plane to return to its original position.

There were armed men and armed vehicles on both sides of the runway. In this situation, Mexican pilot Miguel Eduardo Hernández Velázquez left the plane and tried to reach his country’s Minister of Defense (Sedena), Luis Crescencio Sandoval, but was unsuccessful.

Bolivian officials told Hernández Velázquez to raise his arms and get Morales off the plane.

“At that moment, another person approached from behind and struck him in the lower back with the butt of a long rifle, Garand type, whereupon the pilot turned to the left to confront him,” states the document published in the book “A la mitad del camino” (Halfway), edited by Rt. Rev.

“Brave men do not kill”.

The aggression continued when another military officer “hit him in the abdomen with the flame breaker of a light automatic rifle for no apparent reason, loaded his weapon and pointed it at his chest,” the report says.

The report says the attacks stopped when the pilot said to one of his attackers, “Young soldier, brave men do not kill.” Minutes later, however, another group of uniformed and armed civilians tried to board the plane, and the pilot had to cross the access stairs to prevent them.

Amid all this tension, the FAM soldier asked several times to stop pointing the rocket launcher at the plane. Finally, a Bolivian general authorized the takeoff on the condition that the plane leave the airspace within 30 minutes, “otherwise he would not be responsible for the safety of the occupants or the integrity of the aircraft.”