One United States service member and three defense contractors are dead after a small airplane crashed in the Philippines on Thursday, officials said.

One U.S. service member and three defense contractors were killed Thursday when a plane contracted by the U.S. military crashed in a rice field in the southern Philippines, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said.

A U.S. service member and three defense contractors were killed in a Thursday crash in the Philippines, officials said. A statement from U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said an aircraft contracted by the Pentagon crashed in the Province of Maguindanao del Sur,