Jaime Roldós Aguilera

The controversy about the cause of the crash began immediately, when the Accident Investigation Committee (Junta Investigadora de Accidentes, JIA) of the Ecuadorian Air Force attributed the crash to navigational pilot error.

A parliamentary commission formed months later, led by then-MP and former President Otto Arosemena, following pressure from the families of the victims and political groups allied with the president, found contradictions and inconsistencies in the JIA report, but could not reach definitive conclusions especially since the aircraft that was purchased by the Air Force to operate as a VIP transport lacked black box equipment. A team of the Zurich Police also conducted an investigation, and concluded that the plane's motors were shut down when the plane crashed into the mountain. This opinion, which contradicted the Air Force Report, was not investigated further by the Ecuadorian government.

A second parliamentary inquiry, led by socialist MP Victor Granda, was formed in 1990 to review the findings of the Arosemena commission and the military investigations. The final 26-volume report, published in August 1992, found several inconsistencies and voids in the initial findings but didn’t establish a definitive conclusion. It criticized the Arosemena commission for its lack of further investigation into the Zurich police findings. Granda has also questioned former President Osvaldo Hurtado (who had succeeded Roldós) for its failure to question or expose the failures of the Ecuadorian Air Force flight security protocols that led to the crash.[6] Specifically, the Granda commission found that in the contracting process of the King Air bought by the Air Force, several high ranking Air Force officers stated that the black box equipment wasn’t acquired with the plane because it was considered “optional” among other spares and equipment (when it should have carried one as it was functioning as presidential transport). The investigation reportedly found that the two additional pages of the acquisition expedient, the ones with the optional equipment list, weren’t rubricated by any officer; so the commission asked the Air Force to demand a certification from Beechcraft to certify if the equipment had indeed been acquired. The Air Force relayed Beechcraft’s response: that they didn’t held any knowledge or registry of having sold or not the black box. According to Granda, this is an element of doubt, as a black box equipment “may have existed”.[7]

The American author and activist John Perkins, in his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, asserts that Roldós was assassinated, because his plan to reorganize the hydrocarbon sector would have threatened U.S. interests. The economic relations were strained by Roldos' plan for a new hydrocarbon law not favored by US firms, which reportedly engaged in a lobbying and public relations campaign against Roldós' government amongst Ecuadorean and US politicians, as well as with the religious class; to the point that Roldós accused (without credible evidence) missionaries from the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) of colluding with oil interests, before expelling them from the country. Shortly after sending his legislative package on the oil sector reform, in early 1981, Roldós warned foreign interests that if they wouldn’t contribute to the progress of the Ecuadorian people, they would have to leave the country.[8] Additionally, the aforementioned pact on human rights, reached with Colombia and Peru, was seen by the Reagan administration as a tilt toward the Soviet Union.

Just months after Roldós died, another Latin American leader who had been at odds with U.S. interests in the control of the Panama Canal, Panama's Omar Torrijos, died in what was allegedly just a plane crash, which also is perceived by some to have been a CIA-conducted assassination, again according to Perkins. It is worth noting that Roldós had applauded Jimmy Carter on his stance regarding the return of the Panama Canal after the Torrijos–Carter Treaties.[9]

Conservative historian Niall Ferguson has described Perkins's allegations as implausible. Ferguson notes that that US economic involvement in Ecuador was minimal (less than .5% of foreign aid went to Ecuador, and Ecuador purchased less than .5% of American exports) and inadequate to motivate such drastic action as assassinating a head of state.[10]

The documentary The Death of Jaime Roldós, which premiered in 2013 explores Roldós' death using interviews, archives and documentary research.[11] It was directed by Manolo Sarmiento, who is close to the Roldós family. According to the film, the Ecuadorian military was heavily sympathetic, if not directly involved, with Operation Condor, the regional repressive apparatus set up by the military dictatorships of the Southern Cone countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay). Consequently, and according to Richelieu Levoyer; who happened to be Commander-in-Chief of the Ecuadorian Army at the time of the crash, Argentinians and Chileans involved themselves in the conspiracy to end Roldós’ regime, as they saw it sympathetic to left-wing causes and governments.[12]

Almost immediately after the screening, Attorney General Galo Chiriboga announced his decision to reopen the investigation. In April 2015, he announced to the National Assembly that, based on an alleged CIA document declassified in 2014, Ecuador had joined Operation Condor in mid-January 1978. According this document, participation would had occurred through the intelligence services of the Armed Forces; for this purpose, it is alleged (and also reported in the documentary) that “an Argentine general would have visited Quito and installed, in the Ministry of Defense, a telecommunications system (named “Condortel”). The Navy was in charge of telecommunications, while the Air Force was in charge of psychological warfare.” Additionally, an offer by Chile’s Augusto Pinochet to train Ecuadorian personnel at the Military Intelligence School in Santiago would have followed.[13]

In May 2016, on the 35th anniversary of the crash, Attorney General Chiriboga announced the discovery of several documents, audiovisual and material evidence that was used in the first official inquiry, in an Ecuadorian Air Force depot. Reportedly among the evidence were some small remains of the ill-fated Super King Air. Chiriboga announced that some of that evidence would be sent to Brazil for further analysis; and that he would embark on further investigation, among military installations, to look out for more remains from the aircraft. The Roldós family asked to be kept informed on the new investigation.[14] Chiriboga said that up this discovery collaboration from the Armed Forces had been “cold”, but that “better disposition” now existed. It is worth noting that former Defense Minister Fernando Cordero had declared in 2015 that despite documentation having been declassified in 2013, several files had been incinerated and other documents lost, a fact that his institution would investigate. Cordero added that previous information requests by the Attorney General had been obstructed by missing or disorganized investigation records.[15]