MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) — US Coast Guard's reconnaissance plane trespassed into the Venezuelan airspace on Friday, Venezuela’s Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said late Sunday.
"Forty-eight hours ago an intelligence aircraft of the US Coast Guard, based at the Hato Navy air station in the Curacao island, crossed into our air space," the national AVN news agency quoted Padrino as saying.
The minister said the trespassing plane was a Dash-8. He added it was unusual for such an aircraft with its electronic surveillance equipment to come close to Venezuela’s "area of influence."
Relations between Venezuela and the United States have been strained since the late 1990s. Most recently, Washington imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s several senior officials.
