USAF: Colombia crash caused by plane hitting hill

NORFOLK, Virginia (AP) — U.S. Air Force investigators say a plane crash that killed four people in Colombia this past fall occurred when the plane's pilots failed to stay over water and slammed into a hill.

In October, three Americans and one Panamanian were killed while conducting drug surveillance. Two U.S. contractors on the plane were rescued by Colombian military forces.

Details of the crash were released in a report by Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia on Wednesday.

The report says the twin-engine turboprop crashed near the Panamanian border while on a night counter-narcotics mission. The report says the plane had been following a suspected drug smuggler in the Caribbean Sea near Panama at night when the pilots inadvertently flew over land and hit a hill.