January 2015, Reuters informs about the next news:

Venezuela said on Friday it shot down a civilian plane after it ignored communications off its Caribbean coast near the island of Aruba, but denied any violation of international airspace.

Authorities on Aruba, a semi-autonomous island that is part of the kingdom of the Netherlands, had said on Thursday the aircraft being pursued by Venezuelan military jets went down off its coast, with human remains and packages of drugs visible in the water.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino told reporters the plane, which first landed in Apure state, was shot down after ignoring communications on takeoff.

“It didn’t obey orders and it was annulled 25 nautical miles northeast of the Josefa Camejo (military) base, that is to say, in our territorial waters,” the Venezuelan minister said.

I knew myself about because some mexican airplanes have been shot down also.  The fact is that drugs are also shipped that way and Venezuela has to avoid that. As I have told in other posts, there was a risk to be taken by one of them, but it was a limited one.

Asking for permit was the first safety item. Second one (and I did it) was to listen with my second VHF communications system, the emergency frequency that is 121,5 mhz all the flight long.

Any aircraft interceptor will try to communicate with the suspect aircraft on that frequency. Also he will close the airplane and indicate him to follow the fighter and land where indicated.

Of course, if the suspected aircraft doesn´t obey, shooting him down is one of the things that can happen.

Problem is that sometimes, 121,5 is not listened. May be even the pilot doesn´t realise that the fighter is near by.

When flying, we pilots, have work also  ¨inside¨ the cockpit and looking outside is restricted , so errors by interceptor airplane can happen.

That Reuters news relative to the shooting down airplane confirms that he was carrying drugs. That same policy is applied in other countries in America.

After the flight, I was contacted by Venezuela Civil Aviation. They told me that they tracked me all the flight and we chatted for a while. I thanked them for your support and for the kindness of the controllers I was able to contact.

Finally I was asked if I have seen Angel´s Fall…..

….mmmmh…..in fact, not very well !