US Surveillance Plane Guided Peru Air Force in Plane Shootdown

A tragedy over the Peruvian jungle, in which a US missionary and her child lost their lives, took a dramatic turn late Saturday, when the United States acknowledged it had been feeding intelligence to a Peruvian warplane that shot down the aircraft carrying the Americans.

"An unarmed US government tracking aircraft was in the area and provided location data for the subsequent intercept mission that was conducted by the Peruvian air force," a State Department official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The official did not specify which of the US government agencies involved in a program helping Peru detect and monitor suspect aircraft "to stem the flow of illegal drugs," was operating the surveillance plane.

But according to the official, the final call in the missionary plane episode had rested with the Peruvians. "Peruvian authorities are responsible for identifying the aircraft and deciding any action," the official told AFP.

US anti-drug surveillance flights have been suspended pending an investigation into the incident, the State Department official said.

The admission capped events that began Friday when a Peruvian Air Force plane shot at a Cessna 185 in the skies of northern Peru, killing US missionary Veronica Bowers, 36, and her seven-month-old daughter Charity, but leaving her husband and son, seven, unharmed.

The Peruvian defense ministry expressed "deep regret" for opening fire on the plane, about an hour's flying time from the town of Iquitos Friday, saying the air force pilot had mistaken the Christian missionaries' aircraft for a planeload of narcotics traffickers.

Peruvian officials have said the plane, operated by Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, did not file a flight plan and was not responding to attempts to contact it by radio.

But that version of events was sharply disputed by the organization's director for mission relations, E.C. Haskell. "All regulations were followed, such as a flight plan, remaining in Peruvian airspace, and maintaining contact with the flight towers," he said. The pilot Kevin Donaldson, despite being injured, managed to land the Cessna on a river, according to Haskell.

Controversy began building Saturday when the US Southern Command and the US Embassy in Peru let out word that a US reconnaissance aircraft was operating in the area at the time the Peruvian fighter strafed the Cessna aircraft.

In Quebec City, Canada, US President Georges W. Bush discussed the matter with Peruvian Prime Minister Javier Perez de Cuellar on the sidelines of a Pan-American summit there, but said it was too early to say if the United States should share the blame for the incident. "I will wait to see all the facts before I reach any conclusions about blame," he said.

Perez de Cuellar expressed his deep regret to Bush and offered to help the families in any way he could, according to White House officials.

The deaths over the Amazon again place the spotlight on US intelligence-gathering flights over the Andean region, already subject to sharp criticism by opponents of US involvement there.

US defense officials conceded that the Pentagon is carrying out "routine and ongoing" counterdrug operations along the Andean range, which involve use of a wide variety of intelligence gathering planes.

Airborne AWACS radars, P-3 Orions and other aircraft regularly scour the airspace over Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, looking for suspicious small aircraft that could be used for drug trafficking, said a defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

When such aircraft are spotted in the area, US planes alert local military authorities who send out their own warplanes to intercept it, according to US officials.

US agencies that share involvement in the monitoring program with the Peruvians are the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the State Department said, which is another of the agencies.

A spokesman for the US Southern Command had told AFP earlier that no Defense Department planes were involved in the monitoring operation.






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