CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The Latest on Venezuela’s political and economic crisis (all times local):
1:10 p.m.
Spain’s airline pilots union has asked for Spanish airline Air Europa to stop flying to Venezuela after one of its crews was attacked at gunpoint in Caracas.
The Sepla union said Monday that two pilots and eight more crew members of a flight from Madrid were assaulted on Saturday while going from the airport to their hotel in the Venezuelan capital.
The crew told the union that their van was surrounded by men on three motorbikes who later fled after an exchange of gunfire with a person the crew believed to be a plainclothes police officer. None of the crew members was injured.
The union says Air Europa responded to the attack by ordering the crews of flights to Venezuela to not spend the night in the country.
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12:30 p.m.
Witnesses say an explosion occurred at a power station in the Venezuelan capital as days of nationwide power cuts imposed increasing hardship on the country.
Flames rose from the electrical facility in the Baruta area of Caracas early Monday, contributing to a sense of chaos among Venezuelans already struggling with an economic crisis and a bitter political standoff.
Opposition leader Juan Guaido says three of four electricity transformers servicing the area were knocked out and that state engineers are unable to fix them. The U.S.-backed leader of the National Assembly has blamed the blackouts that began Thursday on alleged government corruption and mismanagement.
President Nicolas Maduro, meanwhile, has accused Guaido and the United States of staging a “cyberattack” on Venezuela’s power grid. The U.S. dismisses the allegation.
