Santo Domingo. - Two Super Tucano attack planes, the first of eight, left Brazil yesterday toward San Isidro Airbase, where they are expected arrive in the next 48 hours, to a ceremony headed by president Leonel Fernandez.

It’s the third time the country obtains attack craft, the first being the Mustang P-51s and then the A-37 Dragonfly jets, one of which shot down a plane carrying drugs near the border with Haiti in the late 1980s.

Their arrival places Dominican Republic in the group of Latin America nations which have bought the craft from company Embraer, in Sao Jose Dos Campos, to fight drug trafficking, contraband and illegal immigration.

Dominican Air Force (FAD) officers pilot the two planes, accompanied by two Brazilian technicians, who took off at 1:30 p.m. yesterday near the city Sao Paulo, but for security reasons neither their route nor identities has been revealed.

In a ceremony held Friday in Embraer’s hangars its executives Dominican Armed Forces minister Pedro Rafael Peña signed the documents transferring the Super Tucanos to Dominican property.

U.S. high tech

The United States Government’s authorization was need prior to the planes’ flight, since they own the highly reserved technology, forbidden to countries which it considers dangerous.

“Definitely, the airplanes already took off and are in flight towards the country and we expect them in San Isidro in less than 48 hours,” said a military said source to newspaper Listin.