Key Mexico minister dies in helicopter crash

Mexican Interior Secretary Francisco Blake Mora, a key figure in the country’s bitter war on drug cartels, died in a helicopter crash near Mexico City on Friday, along with seven others. “Unfortunately the interior secretary, his collaborators and the helicopter crew were found dead,” government spokeswoman Alejandra Sota said in a televised address. Blake, 45, was the second interior secretary to die in an air accident during the presidency of Felipe Calderon, after Juan Camilo Mourino died in a small plane crash in Mexico City three years ago. Blake and his colleagues had been traveling from Mexico City to Cuernavaca, in the neighboring state of Morelos, to a meeting of prosecutors. A search began after the helicopter disappeared from its projected route. TV pictures later showed the wreckage in a mountainous area, with several other choppers on the ground nearby.  Calderon, who cancelled his trip to a weekend summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in Hawaii following Blake’s death, said the crash was likely an accident due to poor weather conditions and promised a full investigation. “The cloudy conditions at the time of the journey the secretary was taking ... certainly suggest the probability of an accident, but all probabilities will be investigated,” he said in a televised address. The president, whose leadership has been defined by a controversial military crackdown on the country’s drug gangs involving tens of thousands of troops, lauded Blake as a loyal and close collaborator. “He was above all a great Mexican who deeply loved the country he served until the last moment of his life,” Calderon said. The other victims were three interior ministry officials, including the deputy minister for rights and legal affairs, as well as the helicopter crew. Blake, a lawyer from the border city of Tijuana, was a lawmaker from Calderon’s National Action Party (PAN). He assumed his ministerial post on July 14, 2010. Calderon chose Blake for his experience with government and security forces in his native state of Baja California, which is located on key drug trafficking routes. Blake maintained a tough stance in Calderon’s fight against organised crime. “There’s no confusion here—in this battle there’s no space for truces or hesitations, nor for experiments,” Blake said in a recent speech after the killing of a mayor in the western state of Michoacan. Friday’s crash came days after the third anniversary of the crash that killed Mourino on November 4, 2008, along with the anti-drug prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos. Many speculated that sabotage was behind that accident, in which 14 died, but investigators blamed pilot error. The last message on Blake’s Twitter account referred to Mourino, on the anniversary of his death. “Today we remember Juan Camilo Mourino three years after his passing. (He was) a human being who worked to build a better Mexico,” it said. US and French civil aviation authorities will join the investigation into the helicopter crash that killed Mexican Interior Secretary Francisco Blake Mora, officials said. The aircraft was a Super Puma manufactured in France by Eurocopter in 1983. Communications and Transportation Minister Dionisio Perez-Jacome told reporters late Friday that Mexico had reached out to the US National Transportation Safety Board and the French civil aviation accident investigation service for help in the probe. US President Barack Obama told Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Friday he was “shocked and saddened” by the death of Mexican Interior Secretary Francisco Blake Mora, the White House said. Obama, who spoke to Calderon by telephone, “reinforced his commitment to the close partnership between the United States and Mexico in this difficult time”, said US National Security Council spokesman Ben Rhodes. Obama “told President Calderon that he was shocked and saddened to learn of the tragic death” of the minister and the others, Rhodes told reporters aboard the US president’s official Air Force One airplane. Obama “said that his thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who were lost, with President Calderon and with the Mexican people”, he said. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a statement called Blake “a valuable colleague and partner to the United States on security and many other issues”. “He was committed to taking on the drug cartels that menace Mexican communities and to doing everything he could to protect citizens, prevent violence, end police corruption and bring criminals to justice,” she said.