[Kasik]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

Did they ever determine why the airplane crashed? Shot down, mechanical failure, pilot er etc? I know down there things are not always investigated like they are here, just wondering if the cause was ever determined.

After 16 months of research, interviews and FOIA/Presidential Library requests / documentation review -

On September 4, 1978, President Somoza declared open warfare on his government's opponents - http://news.google.com/newspapers?ni...g=3128,1063611

Raymond Molina, quoted in the article, was also the recruiter for Echanis, Sanders and Bobby Nguyen. Molina, a Cuban-American and veteran of the Bay of Pigs, was a member of the inner circle of President Somoza and GEN Ivan Alegrett.

Echanis was recruited to form and run an intelligence fusion cell that reported to Molina and President Somoza alone. Their information, if and when deemed appropriate, was then passed to the US embassy in Managua via the MilGrp.

Former US Army attache to the embassy in Managua, then Major Juan Montes, recommended Echanis to Molina when the latter contacted his childhood friend at the embassy looking for names. Montes, former company commander at the 5th Group where he knew and was close to Echanis and Sanders, is SF/RGR qualified and a retired colonel today.

On September 8, 1978, the US embassy contacted Molina and advised him a force of Sandinistas had crossed the Costra Rican border with NIC. This force was headed for the southern town of Rivas. the assault was part of the Sandinista "final offensive" for September 1978.

Molina met with Somoza - they called Alegrett - Alegrett offered to fly a recon in his Aero Commander 114-A - Alegrett called Echanis and asked him to fly the recon with him.

Echanis and Sanders were driven to Alegrett's office by Bobby Nguyen. Molina had agreed to fly with them. However, this did not occur and Nguyen took the vacant seat.

GEN Alegrett, nicknamed "El Loco" for things like dropping live grenades placed in glass jars from his aircraft (he was a helo pilot, as well), flew toward Rivas.

Arriving just south of the town they spotted Sandinista fighters and proceeded to recon / drop grenades from the plane.

An EEBI (Home of the Infantry Training Center) patrol witnessed this. They were patrolling near "los Pochotes". The aircraft suffered an explosion inside the aircraft and crashed near the mouth of the Sapoa River.

The EEBI patrol radioed news of the crash and was the first to arrive at the scene. They recovered all four bodies. Echanis, Sanders and Bobby's were taken to El Retiro Hospital in Managua. Due to the number of NIC KIA in the morgue because of the past several days of fighting the three were placed on the morgue's floor.

2nd LT Oscar Mienienta and CPT Juan Rivera, both from the EEBI, were at the morgue that day looking for EEBI dead. They knew the Americans from the EEBI. They discovered the three on the floor and called the EEBI commandante, President Somoza's son.

He contacted his father, the President.

President Somoza called then AMB Solaun at the US embassy.

Solaun sent Telegram 7482 to the Department of State.

"President Somoza informed ambassador this afternoon (Sept 8) and we have heard same reports from other sources in the GN that an aircraft pioloted by GEN Alegrett with three US CITS ONBOARD crashed in Lake Nicaragua south of Rivas and that all aboard are dead. GEN Alegretts' passengers reportedly are Michael Dick Echanis, Charles Wilford Sanders. The third dead passenger was Bobby Lee, a South Vietnamese who, we understand, was recruited at Fort Bragg, North Carolina."

The EEBI patrol leader on site stated "...que habia habido una explosion dentro de la aeronave algo asi como la de una granada fragmentacion, la que causo las explosion del aparato."

US Naval Attache at the US embassy, now retired SEAL Skip Crane, affirms the first reports he heard was that grenades were being dropped from the plane. Crane would be the first American from the embassy to identify Echanis' remains. This at a secure hanger at the international airport.

Crane and CPT Rivera knew each other, as well.

The officlal cause of death on all three's NIC death certificates reads aviation accident - in Echanis' case (Certificate #107432) as an example - "...Michael Echanis, soltero, sin asistencia medica, de accidente aero." Time of the accident is given as 1300 Hours, September 8, 1978.

Additional NIC GN / Medico documents support the cause of death for all three.

US embassy documents signed on September 13, 1978, by Mary Daniel, counsel to the embassy in Managua, affirm the deaths having occurred near Rivas on September 8, 1978.

Embalment and custom caskets were ordered by President Somoza. The caskets were flown from Managua on September 13, 1978, to the United States on La Nica Airlines which Somoza owned.

Early reports of the Aero Commander having been hit by a SAM 7 are false. This story came from Keith "Jack" Idema long after the fact.

Soldier of Fortune published an interview with an alleged OSN officer who claimed Somoza ordered Alegrett be assassinated. Ray Molina, close to Somoza since 1972, says this allegation is absurd. Even SOF said in its article none of what they were told could be supported independenty.

There were, despite a claim otherwise, no Americans at the crash site and no American assisted in the body recovery operation. One American who has claimed otherwise offers he has photos of the crash site and the recovery ops...however he has never produced these over the years. His own given location in NIC when the plane went down places him too far away to have arrived - even by air - before the bodies were dragged from the plane's wreckage and trucked back to Managua.

He, his wife (also American) and two other Americas working as trainers at the EEBI fled the country on the same La Nica flight carrying the dead.

In short, Echanis, Sanders, Nguyen and Alegrett died as the result of a fragmentation grenade detonating inside the plane.

The NIC GN stopped the offensive in brutal fighting by using aerial bombardment of the major cities under attack. Somoza would hang on to power for roughly one more year before abdicating and fleeing first to the US - where he was rebuked and declared Persona non grata - and then to Paraguay.

There he wrote a book about his fall from grace, mentioned Echanis and Alegrett with great praise, and was later assassinated by a Marxist Argentine hit team using submachine guns and RPG-7s.