Pubdate: Sun, 22 Apr 2001
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2001 San Francisco Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Author: Anthony Faiola, Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post 

U.S. PLANE LINKED TO FATAL CESSNA DOWNING IN PERU 

Fighter Jet Shot, Killed Mother, Baby

A U.S. government surveillance plane flying over northern Peru had
identified a small aircraft carrying American missionaries as a possible
drug flight and passed the information to the Peruvian Air Force shortly
before a Peruvian fighter jet shot it from the sky Friday morning, U.S.
sources said. 

A mother and her 7-month-old daughter were killed by rounds fired from
the Peruvian plane. The missionary plane, a Cessna 185 that was flying
from the Colombian border toward the city of Iquitos, 620 miles
northeast of Lima, tumbled to an emergency landing in the Amazon River.
The pilot, who was shot in the leg, survived, as did the woman's husband
and another child. 

The U.S. government plane, a twin-engine Cessna Citation jet, was
piloted by a civilian working under the auspices of the U.S. Embassy in
Lima. The U.S. Customs Service operates such flights routinely over
Peruvian airspace in search of low-flying drug-runners. Under a
long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement with Peru, the United
States passes information on suspect planes to the Peruvian military,
which has a policy of intercepting the aircraft and forcing them to land
or shooting them down. 

Peruvian military officials insisted yesterday that the crew of their
A-37B fighter followed "international procedures of identification and
interception" spelled out in the intelligence agreement. They said the
missionaries' flight failed to respond to radio messages and signals to
land. 

U.S. officials in Washington said that an investigation had been
launched into the incident, and that the Peruvian government had pledged
full cooperation. Both the United States and Peru have suspended their
joint interdiction flights pending the outcome of the investigation,
according to a U.S. Embassy source in Lima. 

There were sharp differences between Peru's insistence that correct
procedures had been followed and the version provided by the U.S.-based
Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, whose members were aboard
the flight.

The Rev. E.C. Haskell, a spokesman for the missionary group, said the
pilot, 

Kevin Donaldson, had filed a flight plan at Iquitos. Donaldson was
described as an experienced pilot in the Peruvian Amazon, a region where
Protestant missionaries have been heavily active for decades. 

Haskell said Donaldson maintained radio contact with air traffic
controllers at the Iquitos airport throughout the flight. He said the
Peruvian military did not communicate with Donaldson, by radio or
otherwise, before shots were fired at the aircraft. 

Mario Justo, civil aviation chief at the Iquitos airport, insisted that
the missionaries had not filed an official flight plan. He said Peruvian
civil aviation authorities had no knowledge of the flight until one
radio transmission moments before the plane was shot down. 

It was unclear whether the confrontation between the Peruvian jet and
Cessna was visible to the U.S. surveillance plane. 

International law and the intelligence-sharing agreement require that
once U.S. officials identify a suspect plane, Peru's military must
determine if it filed a flight plan with nearby airports, and then
attempt radio contact. If there is no response, intercepting fighters
are to attempt hand signals to the pilot, then rock their wings -- an
internationally recognized signal for "follow me." If all else fails,
the intercepting jet is required to fire a warning shot across the nose
of the plane before shooting at it directly. 

A former U.S. official with close knowledge of the agreement and how it
has operated said the Peruvians have observed those procedures
meticulously in the more than two-dozen shootdowns since 1995. 

But survivors of Friday's shootdown said they were given no warning. 

According to ABWE Aviation Director Hank Scheltema, who spoke by
telephone with James Bowers, a passenger on the flight, the missionaries
were flying toward Iquitos when they noticed two other planes flying
above and behind them. 

"They just flew around, over and above, and never slowed up," Scheltema
said Bowers told him. "One went from behind and began to fire." He said
Bowers' wife, Veronica, 35, and daughter, Charity, were shot on the
first pass and died instantly. Donaldson, the pilot, was struck in both
legs on the second pass and the plane broke into flames. 

Donaldson managed to bring down the pontoon-equipped plane into the
Amazon, where it bounced and then flipped over. Donaldson pulled himself
out and Bowers unstrapped his wife and daughter and carried them to a
pontoon. He told his seven-year-old son, Cory, to jump into the water.
The ABWE officials said Bowers told them the Peruvian plane continued to
fire at them while they were in the water. 

Local Peruvians rescued them and took them to the small, nearby city of
Pebas. 

Four hours after the group reached Pebas, Southwell said, a Peruvian Air
Force Twin Otter, carrying some American personnel, arrived and carried
the Bowers to Iquitos. Donaldson was brought to an Iquitos hospital
yesterday. 

Southwell said Bowers was questioned last night by a Peruvian military
official from Lima, in the presence of American consular officials. 

Bowers told him, Southwell said, that "there was no indication
whatsoever that there was any warning given" by the Peruvians before the
shootdown. "If there had been any warning given, I can guarantee you
that our pilot would have landed."
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