It is not true that a US aircraft violated Venezuelan airspace in 2023, as reported on WhatsApp in a video with part of the statements by Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López. The material uploaded on Tik Tok on May 23, 2023, corresponds to an extensive statement by the official offered in November 2015, when there was an unreported overflight, therefore it is a manipulation
Text: Ligia Perdomo
A last-minute video taken from the VTV screen runs on Whatsapp in which Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López is seen, and he can be heard saying: “… aeronautical laws not reporting the presence of that plane to the tower of control as the law says. Then the narrator of the @montalvonoticias85 account points out that “an emergency meeting was called. The dictator Nicolás orders the total deployment of artillery. They are trying to intervene militarily in the neighboring country of Venezuela. It is a manipulation.
The video has a duration of 2 minutes, 52 seconds, but the statements of the head of the Defense barely occupy seven seconds. The rest is taken by the narrator and user of the @montalvonoticias85 account, who points out:
“This is what is happening today in Venezuela. A lot of attention because an emergency meeting would have been called by the dictator Nicolás a few hours ago and he set off the alarms assuring that there are moves to get into Venezuela. Well, that’s how Domingo Hernández Lares was announced a few hours ago. The Military High Command set off the alarms and confirmed that two aircraft entered Venezuelan airspace a few hours ago (…) At this time, the information that we are delivering exclusively to MN Noticias. Venezuelan radars were the ones that would have detected the violation of airspace by US aircraft in Venezuelan space, which would have ordered a militarization and reinforcement of the borders between Venezuela and Colombia.
EsPaja searched Tik Tok for the @Montavonoticias85 account in which the video is actually found, available in that account since May 23, 2023, that is, it does not correspond to June 7, when the material arrived at EsPaja for verification. And it is that this material can circulate at any time through WhatsApp, since it indicates: “this is what is happening today in Venezuela.”
But on Tik Tok today is May 23. And to date there has been no official pronouncement on a violation of Venezuelan airspace by the United States.
When searching the Internet for unauthorized US air raids on Venezuela, they reached November 2015. On the 8th of that month, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López announced the irregularity in a broadcast from the Miraflores Palace.
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This is part of the statement offered by Padrino López:
“I want to announce to the country that 48 hours ago, a US Coast Guard intelligence plane, based at the Hato air base in Curaçao, took off from there and entered our flight information region (…). The first thing we received was the violation of aeronautical laws by not reporting the presence of that plane to the Maiquetía control tower, as the law says, but the most serious thing is that this Dash 8 type aircraft, equipped with multimode surveillance radar maritime with a receiver and transmitter system, with a signal processor and also with an electro-optical system that allows the detection of thermal energy for the creation of images (…) violated the airspace in the territorial sea generated by Los Monjes.
At 12:34 p.m., it entered the Venezuelan flight information region and did not report said presence to our control tower in Maiquetía, as established in international aeronautical laws (…) It continued to descend and violated the airspace at 4 nautical miles east of Los Mojes and made a reconnaissance pattern, orbited south of Los Monjes in the Gulf of Venezuela, made circular search patterns and continued south, also violating Venezuelan airspace, barely 6 nautical miles west of The Monks leaving the information region and our radar contact. This information has been transmitted to the Foreign Ministry for the relevant purposes (…)”.
Days later, on November 17, 2015, the head of the Southern Command of the United States Army, John Kelly, admitted that a plane from his country flew over the airspace of Venezuela and apologized for the fact.
“It flew about 3.5 minutes within the 12-mile limit (of Venezuela), but did not (approach) more than nine miles.” And he specified: “not on the mainland, but on an island,” Kelly said during a forum organized by The International Institute for Strategic Studies, after which he indicated: “we apologize for that,” CNN published in Spanish.
As of June 2023, there is no pronouncement from the government of Nicolás Maduro on an unauthorized incursion of Venezuelan airspace by US aircraft.
Extract from the video of Padrino López’s statement of November 8, 2015 was used to add information that was not given at the time and posted on Tik Tok on May 23, 2023, the date from which it could be circulating on WhatsApp. It is a manipulation.
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