The Honduran Air Force (FAH) is strengthening its ability to respond to drug trafficking and organized crime with a new Cessna 208 EX Grand Caravan donated by the United States. The FAH received the plane on December 8th at the Hernán Acosta Mejía Air Base in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa.
The high-performance turboprop is the second of three aircraft that the United States will deliver as part of the ongoing cooperation program between the countries. U.S. authorities delivered the first one on August 6, 2015, and the final one should arrive before the end of September 2016.
The aircraft will support “Military operations against organized crime and drug trafficking, as well as humanitarian assistance and relief efforts,” explained Major Samuel Sterlin, head of the U.S. Air Force Section of the Office of Security Cooperation in Tegucigalpa.
“It’s a gesture that we always have in mind from a country [the United States] with which we have maintained a close brotherhood and relationship,” said the outgoing head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Honduran Armed Forces, Major General Fredy Santiago Díaz Zelaya, during the ceremony for the aircraft’s delivery, according to the National Secretariat of Defense (SEDENA).
