Alberto Capella, Chief of Police for Quintana Roo, on Sunday posted two videos on Twitter showing the blazing remains of the aircraft on a road outside the small town of Polyuc in the northeast of the state.
The footage shows black smoke billowing from the centre of the plane, with the tail and engines separated from the body of the aircraft.
In a statement released later that day, the Ministry of National Defence said that the army had detected an illicit aircraft entering Mexican airspace that morning from the south. The military then deployed planes to intercept the aircraft, and sent in troops for ground support.
La matrícula de la aeronave aparentemente es XB-RCM y podría estar relacionada con actividades ilícitas. Autoridades federales atendiendo la investigación. pic.twitter.com/VcjWywriOe
— Alberto Capella (@kpya) July 5, 2020
07:50 horas en el tramo carretero Chunhuhub – José María Morelos en el Kilómetro 61, sobre la carretera una aeronave incendiándose. Evite la zona por favor. pic.twitter.com/pF90AvZh91
— Alberto Capella (@kpya) July 5, 2020
By the time the aircraft was located it had already landed and caught fire. Soldiers stationed around 20 kilometers to the north of the crash site soon afterwards stopped a truck carrying almost 400 kilograms of cocaine believed to have been unloaded from the downed plane.
The ministry put the street value of the shipment at approximately 109 million pesos (US$4.9 million), but declined to add whether the pilot or the driver of the truck had been detained.