Pubdate: Fri, 03 Aug 2001
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Copyright: 2001 Cox Interactive Media.
Contact:  http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/28
Author: Ken Guggenheim, Associated Press

PLANE DOWNED AMID MUDDLE

Language Split U.S., Peru Crews

Washington -- Peruvian officers involved in the downing of an American 
missionary plane did not hear or could not understand warnings from a 
CIA-hired crew that might have saved the lives of a missionary and her 
infant daughter, a videotape showed.

The American pilots expressed doubts that the missionary's Cessna float 
plane was a drug flight, as they had initially suspected, but didn't 
explicitly try to stop the Peruvians until the shooting began.

''No! Don't shoot! No mas! No mas!'' the unidentified American co- pilot 
shouted after the Cessna was fired on.

The videotape and accompanying audio were released Thursday along with the 
results of a joint U.S.-Peruvian investigation that found procedural 
errors, language problems and an overloaded communications system all 
contributed to the accident.

The report did not assign blame and did not address whether U.S. drug 
surveillance flights, suspended since the April 20 shooting, should be 
resumed. Another report will address that question.

The report found that procedures established in 1994 to avoid an accidental 
downing had been abbreviated by both countries. After U.S. and Peruvian 
planes collided during a drug mission in 1999, the two sides focused more 
on their own flight safety than on avoiding accidental shootings.

One step that had been eliminated was having the pursuing plane make visual 
contact with the suspect planes and gesture to it by tipping its wings, 
said Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers, who headed the American side 
of the investigative team.

The report also said the missionary plane generated suspicions because it 
did not file a flight plan until shortly before it was shot at.

The missionary group, the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, has 
said pilot Kevin Donaldson was following customary practice in the area by 
calling in his flight plan as he came within radio range of the tower.

Beers stressed that Donaldson wasn't responsible for the downing.

Communications mix-ups were major problems. The Americans spoke little 
Spanish, and the Peruvian liaison officer spoke broken English.

The audio also shows a tangle of communications in two languages with 
Americans and the Peruvians in the surveillance plane talking to their 
bases, the A-37 chase jet and each other --- with many of the conversations 
going on simultaneously.

The chief of Peru's air force, Maj. Gen. Jorge Kisic, said he hopes that 
the U.S. drug cooperation will resume.

''At this time, we are aware that the skies of the Peruvian jungle are 
being inundated by narcotics traffickers,'' he said after presenting the 
report in Peru.

Beers, however, said he has seen no evidence of increased trafficking.

Peru's policy of shooting at suspected drug flights is credited with 
sharply reducing the country's production of coca. Peru had been the 
world's leading producer of coca, with traffickers flying it into 
neighboring Colombia for processing into cocaine.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens