Buenos Aires, December 10 (NA) – Two US F-18 fighter jets entered Venezuelan airspace on Tuesday and remained in circles for about 40 minutes, according to the Florida-based newspaper Miami Herald. According to Xinhua, FlightRadar24 data showed that the aircraft were flying over the northern end of Lake Maracaibo, over the waters of the Gulf of Venezuela, right between the cities of La Guajira in the state of Zulia and Coro, the capital of the state of Falcón. As Argentina News Agency learned, Zulia and Falcón are among the key regions for Venezuela's energy sector. In this way, thousands of Venezuelans followed the planes' route online through specialized flight tracking pages, watching as the fighters drew a bow-shaped figure over the gulf, the report noted, which also stated that they were flying at an altitude of about 25,000 feet (about 7,620 meters). Lake Maracaibo, which covers about 5,000 square miles (approximately 12,950 square kilometers), is one of the largest bodies of water in America and the epicenter of reserves containing about 150 billion barrels of crude oil, the report added. The overflight occurred less than 100 miles (about 161 kilometers) northeast of Maracaibo, Venezuela's second-largest city and home to the Rafael Urdaneta Air Base, one of the country's main military bases in the west. On Tuesday, Donald Trump refused to comment on a possible intervention of US troops in Venezuelan territory, although he reiterated that “the days of (Nicolás) Maduro” as president of that South American nation, “are numbered.” Trump reiterated that “Maduro's days are numbered,” but gave no details.
