Speaking of Intent

This isn’t good: Venezuela says U.S. plane breached airspace

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. regrets any “accidental infringement” of Venezuelan airspace by a U.S. plane over the weekend, the State Department said Monday, but a Venezuelan official called the breach intentional.

The pilot “recognized his error and contacted a Venezuela tower to acknowledge that,” said Tom Casey, spokesman for the U.S. State Department.

“This is simply an issue where an error was made and acknowledged at the time,” Casey said.

However, at a news conference in Caracas, Venezuela, Defense Minister Gustavo Rangel Briceno said Venezuela believes that the U.S. military intentionally breached the country’s airspace, adding that the U.S. ambassador will be summoned to the Foreign Ministry to explain the incident.

While acknowledging that the Navy pilot told air traffic controllers at Venezuela’s main Maiquetia airport that he “wasn’t aware of his location,” Rangel Briceno said that “we believe that that’s not the case.”

“We believe that this was a conscious action on the part of the United States Navy, that it’s no more that another link in the chain of provocations that they want to ensnare our country in,” Rangel Briceno said.

It would probably be more believable if that leaders of the coup against Chavez weren’t frequent visitors at the White House, and if the aircraft hadn’t been in an air traffic control area being tracked by ground radar during the flight.

I’m having a real hard time believing, with the recent history of US-Venezuelan relations, that a US military aircraft just accidentally wandered into Venezuelan airspace. If your nav systems go down near “unfriendly territory”, you abort the mission and return to base.