The Plane That Broke the Lie : Strange, Shocking, and Overlooked True Stories from Iran-Contra’s Illegal Financing, Covert Airlifts, and Shadow Networks

The plane fell out of a bright Nicaraguan sky on October 5, 1986, and for a few moments the whole machinery of Iran-Contra became visible at once. Nicaraguan soldiers shot down an American cargo plane carrying military supplies to the contra forces. One crewman, Eugene Hasenfus, survived. In captivity, he said he had been working for the CIA. Within days, the story widened: Hasenfus publicly described repeated resupply flights, named "Max Gomez" and "Ramon Medina," and pointed attention toward the airlift network operating out of Ilopango in El Salvador. What had lived for months in the half-light of denials, aliases, cut-outs, and patriotic euphemism suddenly had wreckage, a survivor, and a map.