Pubdate: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298 Author: Robert D. McFadden AS SURVIVORS RETURN HOME, FRIENDS AND FAMILY VEHEMENTLY DENY PERU'S ACCOUNT Three survivors of a missionary plane shot down in Peru after being mistaken for drug smugglers returned to the United States yesterday as details of their ordeal in the jungle, and of their years as backwater missionaries, were recounted by colleagues and friends. Officials of their mission vehemently disputed Peruvian accounts of the Friday incident, saying that the plane was easily identifiable by its markings and that its pilot had filed a flight plan and had been in radio contact with an airport where he intended to land. They said the Peruvian military plane had opened fire without warning, killing the missionary's wife and infant daughter. A pastor in Muskegon, Mich., who had spoken by phone to the missionary, quoted him as saying that after their stricken plane had crashed in a river, the Peruvian fighter swooped in low and strafed the survivors -- the missionary, his 6-year-old son and the wounded pilot -- as they clung to the burning wreckage. James Bowers, 37, a missionary with the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, and his son, Cory, arrived at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina just after noon on a flight from Peru and were met by officials of the New Cumberland, Pa., mission that had sponsored his family's work for the last seven years. Before going into seclusion at the home of his mother, Wilma, Mr. Bowers expressed concern about the bodies of his wife, Veronica, 35, and their 7-month-old-daughter, Charity, who were killed in the attack. The bodies were still awaiting clearance by authorities in Lima, and the family was unable to make funeral plans. In Philadelphia, the pilot of the downed aircraft, Kevin Donaldson, 42, arrived and was met by his wife, Bobbi, and Hank Scheltema, aviation director of the Baptist mission. Mr. Donaldson was taken to Reading General Hospital for surgery. Although shot in both legs, Mr. Donaldson had crash-landed his pontoon plane on the Amazon River, where the survivors clung to its burning, flipped-over wreckage for nearly an hour until rescued by villagers in dugout canoes. The Peruvian Air Force, which expressed regret, said over the weekend that the missionary plane had entered Peruvian airspace unannounced from Brazil and was fired upon after Mr. Donaldson failed to respond to repeated radio requests to identify himself while flying without a flight plan through a region frequented by drug runners. But Phil Bowers, a trained pilot who sat in on his brother's debriefing by military officials in Peru on Saturday, disputed that version. He said that Mr. Donaldson had been in radio contact with the airport at the jungle city of Iquitos, where he intended to land 40 minutes later, and that the Peruvian plane had fired without warning. "There was no communication," Phil Bowers told The Associated Press in Iquitos, 625 miles northeast of Lima. He said the Cessna 185 had been dogged by two planes -- the Peruvian fighter and an American spotter that had apparently identified Mr. Donaldson's craft as a possible smugglers' flight. "It happened very fast," Phil Bowers related. "The planes flew by first, did some swooping, and then came in from behind and started shooting." Even after the Cessna crashed into the river and flipped over, he said, the Peruvian plane continued firing as survivors clung to the wreckage and the pilot of the American surveillance plane looked on. "We've got hundreds of witnesses from the shore, Peruvians who were watching from the village of Huanta," Mr. Bowers said. And, referring to the Peruvian pilot, he asked: "Why didn't they call and check the registration? Sounds like a bunch of vigilante hot-shot pilots. Either that or someone higher up ordered the pilots to shoot." In Muskegon, Mich., the Rev. William Rudd, pastor of the Calvary Church, from which Mr. and Mrs. Bowers had been sent on their South American mission in 1994, said he had spoken to Mr. Bowers by phone and recounted details of what he characterized as a murderous unprovoked attack without warning. He quoted Mr. Bowers as saying that the survivors, after the crash, had been surrounded by flames and that, as they splashed water to keep from burning, they were fired upon again by the Peruvian attacker, who swooped in for strafing runs. He said that a single bullet that crashed through the fuselage had apparently killed Mrs. Bowers and the baby. Cory, he said, helped rescue the plane's pilot, who was bleeding badly from his leg wounds. He said Mr. Bowers told him Peruvian officials had initially wanted to take him into custody, but had been dissuaded by American officials. The Rev. E.C. Haskell, director of mission relations for the Baptist association, also dismissed the Peruvian government's allegation that the plane was not identifiable, saying that a photo on the association's web site clearly showed the Cessna's identification numbers -- and a dove painted on its side. David Southwell, the association's director of South American ministries, who met Mr. Bowers in Raleigh, insisted that Mr. Donaldson had been in radio contact with Peruvian air officials 15 minutes before the attack. And he called the charge that no flight plan had been filed "absolutely not true," adding, "The flight plan was filed and followed." Mr. Donaldson, who suffered a crushed right leg and injuries of the left calf and was transported on a stretcher, had no immediate comment. But his brother, Gordon Donaldson, an osteopath in Morgantown, Pa., questioned why the Peruvian pilot and American monitors of Peru's drug interdiction efforts had not recognized the missionary plane. "There are only four or five civilian airplanes that fly out of the city of Iquitos," Gordon Donaldson told The Associated Press. "His airplane has been down there for 13 years." As American and Peruvian government officials investigated the circumstances surrounding the deaths, and friends and relatives mourned for the mother and daughter, other details of the attack -- and portraits of those caught up in it -- emerged yesterday. Mr. Haskell said that the Bowers and their two adopted children had taken the journey that ended in tragedy because they wanted to obtain a permanent visa for their infant daughter. To do so, they had to go to a destination that was outside Peru, and the closest was in Colombia. So on Thursday, the family took off with Mr. Donaldson from Iquitos, where the Bowers lived on a houseboat built by their church, and flew 250 miles east to Islandia, a Peruvian town just across the border from Colombia and Brazil. Mr. Haskell said the family had taken a boat across a river to Leticia, Colombia, where they obtained the visa. Mr. Haskell emphasized that, while the family had crossed into Colombia, the missionary plane had never left Peru. "They were never out of Peruvian air space," he said, denying Peru's account that the plane had entered Peruvian airspace from Brazil. The next day, Friday, the family boarded Mr. Donaldson's plane for the trip back to Iquitos and took off. But about 100 miles east of their destination, their plane was intercepted by the Peruvian fighter and shot down. As friends and colleagues recalled yesterday, James and Veronica Bowers for the last seven years had been part of a mission that began in 1939 in northern Peru, bordering Brazil and Colombia, some 800 miles east of the Pacific. There, traveling waterways on their houseboat and sometimes flying in small planes provided and piloted by their mission, they brought their teachings to remote towns and villages in a territory that, in the 1960's, had been part of the mission of Terry and Wilma Bowers, the parents of James Bowers, who was raised in Brazil. Veronica Bowers, known to friends as Roni, grew up in Virginia and decided at the age of 12 that she wanted to be a missionary. After high school, she attended Piedmont Bible College in Winston-Salem, N.C., where she met James Bowers. They were married in 1985. In the late 1980's, Mr. Bowers was in the Army, and he and his wife were stationed for three years in Germany. After his discharge in 1990, they returned to Piedmont Bible College and graduated together in 1993. They then moved to Muskegon, Mich., the hometown of James's mother, and soon became the second generation of his family to become South American missionaries from Calvary Church. They were sent to Peru in 1994 by the Baptist association, founded in 1927, an organization that has 1,300 missionaries in 65 countries who are supported by 8,000 Baptist churches. According to Mrs. Bowers's biographical sketch for the mission, the couple were unable to have children and adopted Cory in 1994, and Charity soon after her birth last Sept. 14. At Calvary Church in Muskegon, which has 1,000 members and supports about 70 missions around the world, worshipers yesterday remembered the Bowers as a family devoted to missionary work. "She wouldn't even date a guy unless they were ready to go off and do missionary work," Kate Sagan, a friend and fellow church member, recalled. Donna Zandstra, Mr. Bowers's cousin, added, "They both were doing exactly what they believed God called them to do." - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager