Four American contractors were rescued by the U.S. military Saturday after their plane was forced to make an emergency crash landing in northern Iraq, according to a U.S. official.
The plane crashed early Saturday morning. While the aircraft suffered significant damage, none of the four crew members was injured during the landing, the U.S. official told CNN.
“The cause of the crash is under investigation but initial reports rule out the prospect of hostile action,” the official said.
The official said U.S. military forces responded to the incident and managed to secure the emergency landing site, a field northwest of Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Irbil is approximately 50 miles east of the ISIS-held city of Mosul.
The aircraft was a twin turboprop, fixed-wing aircraft, operated by U.S. contractors, according to the official.
The official could not say which U.S. agency the plane’s crew was working for.
The crash was made public after images surfaced on Twitter this week showing the damaged plane and U.S. service personnel securing the area. The U.S. official confirmed that the troops in the pictures were American.