Mexico’s top Cabinet secretary, Francisco Blake Mora, a key figure in the country’s battle with drug cartels, died on Friday in a helicopter crash that Mexican President Felipe Calderon said was probably an accident.
Blake Mora, 45, was the second interior minister, the No. 2 post in the government, to die in an air crash during Calderon’s administration.
Despite some tendencies to suspect a hit on the top officials leading Calderon’s offensive against organized crime, the crash that killed Blake Mora and seven others may have had to do with bad weather. A Learjet that slammed into a Mexico City street in 2008, killing former interior secretary Juan Camilo Mourino and 15 others, was blamed on pilot error.
One of Blake Mora’s last postings on his Twitter account commemorated the loss of Mourino.
“Today we remember Juan Camilo Mourino three years after his death, a person who was working to build a better Mexico,” he tweeted on Nov. 4.
Blake Mora’s death, while a blow to the government, was not likely to change policy or day-to-day operations.
Calderon, visibly emotional over the loss, said the Super Puma helicopter was flying in fog when it went down in a remote area southeast of Mexico City. Still, he said all possible causes were under investigation.
“Mexico has lost a great patriot ... and I lost a dear friend,” said Calderon, who struggled to maintain composure at one point during an address to the country. “He was not only an exemplary minister, he was an exemplary Mexican.”
US President Barack Obama called Calderon to offer his condolences.
Calderon appeared to try to quell any suggestions of sabotage, saying Blake Mora’s helicopter “was always under guard” in the hangar of Mexico’s equivalent of the Secret Service and that it had recently undergone maintenance.
The helicopter left from a military base in Mexico City at 8:45am and 10 minutes later disappeared from radar, Mexican Transportation Secretary Dionisio Perez Jacome said at a news conference late on Friday.
Perez Jacome, who read a statement and didn’t take questions, said the government has asked US and French aviation crash experts to help in the investigation.
Authorities said the undersecretary for human rights, Felipe Zamora, was among the seven others killed, including the pilot.
Calderon appointed Blake Mora as interior secretary in July last year.
That put him in charge of coordinating domestic policies, including security, human rights, migration and the president’s relation with the legislature and opposition parties.
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