Pubdate: Sat, 21 Apr 2001
Source: Associated Press
Copyright: 2001 Associated Press
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/27
Author: Craig Mauro

PERU PLANE SHOT DOWN, KILLS TWO

LIMA, Peru ญญ A Peruvian air force jet shot down a small plane carrying 
American missionaries in Peru's Amazon jungle region Friday, the U.S. 
embassy said. The missionary group said a woman and her infant daughter 
were killed.

"The Peruvian pilot mistook it for an airplane transporting contraband 
drugs," U.S. Embassy spokesman Benjamin Ziff told The Associated Press.

The Rev. E.C. Haskell, spokesman for the Association of Baptists for World 
Evangelism, said five people were aboard the group's plane when it was 
attacked en route from the Peru-Brazil border to the Peruvian city of 
Iquitos, 625 miles northeast of Lima.

Missionary Veronica "Ronnie" Bowers, 35, of Muskegon, Mich. and her 
7-month-old adopted daughter, Charity, were both killed and veteran 
missionary pilot Kevin Donaldson of Morgantown, Pa. was wounded, he said.

Also on board and unhurt were Bowers' husband, Jim Bowers, 35, and their 
6-year-old son Cory, said Haskell. The missionary group's U.S. base is in 
New Cumberland, Pa.

Donaldson's wife, Bobbi, told The Associated Press that her husband was 
shot in the leg and lost control of the single-engine plane, which was in 
flames, but managed to guide the aircraft into the Amazon river, where it 
flipped over.

Veronica Bowers was holding her daughter on her lap when a bullet struck 
her in the back, killing both her and the child, Mrs. Donaldson said in a 
telephone interview from her home in Iquitos.

She told CNN in a separate interview that her husband's "leg was fractured 
by the bullet that went in through his calf. He bled quite profusely 
floating in the Amazon."

She said the military plane continued to fire even after the small plane 
landed on the river.

Haskell said the survivors sat on the pontoons for about 45 minutes before 
being rescued by some Peruvians in a dugout canoe.

"All the natives there knew them; it wasn't like they were strangers," 
Haskell said. They were taken to a clinic.

The group was returning from Leticia, Brazil, where they had picked up a 
Peruvian residency visa for the infant, Mrs. Donaldson said.

She added that a Peruvian air force plane took Jim Bowers, his son, and his 
dead wife and daughter, back to Iquitos, the capital of Amazonas province. 
Her husband was still in a rural clinic near the crash site.

There was no immediate comment from Peru's military. Ziff said U.S. Embassy 
personnel were traveling to the crash scene late Friday.

Between 1994 and 1997, Peru shot down about 25 suspected drug planes on 
their way to Colombian cocaine refineries from coca-growing regions in 
Peru's Amazon.

The actions were the result of former President Alberto Fujimori's tough 
anti-narcotics policies in an effort to reducing trafficking in coca leaf, 
the raw material used to make cocaine.

In July, Fujimori said the country would use its fleet of 18 Russian-made 
Sukhoi-25 fighter jets in the anti-drug fight. The planes were originally 
bought after a brief border war with Ecuador in 1995.

Haskell said Donaldson is an experienced pilot and has worked for the 
missionary association since 1985. His parents were missionaries, and he 
grew up in Peru.

The missionary group has worked in Peru since 1939, according to its Web site.

It helps found Baptist churches in the Iquitos area and other parts of the 
upper Amazon, and sends missionaries into remote areas along the river's 
tributaries.

In Lima and other cities, the group runs a theological seminary, schools, a 
camp and a center for pregnant women.
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MAP posted-by: GD