A Venezuelan fighter jet crashed on Friday near the Colombian border. The fate of the two pilots aboard the Russian-made aircraft was not immediately clear.

The Venezuelan government dispatched rescue crews to look for the Bolivarian National Air Force troops that piloted the Sukhoi-30, a twin-engine, two-seat fighter, El Universal detailed. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López said an investigation led by the air force and the country's Investigative Board of Aviation Accidents was under way.

The incident occurred in the midst of the border crisis with neighboring Colombia, during which Bogotá has accused the Venezuelan military of violating its sovereign airspace on several occasions. Padrino categorically denied that such an incursion may be linked to the accident.

"Here are all traces, here is all proof," the minister said. "And if there is a need to sit down and examine and coordinate, we can do so whenever necessary so as to make sure that the truth prevails."

Padrino also spoke directly to the government in Bogotá, El Universal pointed out.

"We are a serious state," he insisted. "I am telling the Colombian authorities that we do not have any hostile intentions against the Colombian people or the Colombian state, and that it is not our intent to infringe upon, violate or hurt the Colombian airspace."

Government sources in Caracas, meanwhile, suggested that the crash of the Sukhoi jet occurred as the fighter was pursuing an "illicit aircraft" -- likely linked to drug trafficking -- as it entered Venezuelan airspace, Reuters reported. The sources gave no further information about the plane, but Colombian drug cartels are known to use smuggling routes crossing Venezuela to distribute some of the 300 tons of cocaine they produce annually, the newswire added.

"They intend to use our territory as a platform to distribute drugs [produced in Colombia] toward Central America and the Caribbean," Padrino said without specifying who he was referring to, according to Venezuela's semi-official Telesur news network. "Our air force will continue working relentlessly everyday of the year to guarantee the sovereignty and independence [of Venezuela]," the minister said.