BUENOS AIRES (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st July, 2019) The Venezuelan Armed Forces detected a US Lockheed EP-3E signals reconnaissance plane over its territory, the country's Defense Ministry said.

"The Armed Forces said that at 9:52 a.m. [13:52 GMT], on July 19, 2019, the air force's command detected a plane that was heading from the northwestern part of the Caribbean Sea for Maiquetia [near Caracas] ... There was an order to send interceptors� in order to identify the aircraft," the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

The Defense Ministry stressed that the Venezuelan air force had failed to establish a contact with the US aircraft.

"At 11:33 a.m. the visual contact showed that it was a US [Lockheed] EP-3E plane. The attempts to establish a contact with it were not successful ... The plane changed the flight route, it had been shadowed until the moment it had left the region at 11:43 a.m.," the statement added.

The ministry stressed that was not the first such incident, adding that illegal flights in the Venezuelan airspace were treated by Caracas as a significant external threat.