Pubdate: Fri, 27 Apr 2001
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Don Phillips
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?172 (Peruvian Aircraft Shooting)
Note: U.S. Did Not Ratify U.N. Provision Protecting Civilian Aircraft.

PILOTS DECRY MISSIONARY DOWNING AS VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

Civilian pilots around the world have reacted with anger to the 
downing of a plane carrying a missionary family in Peru, saying the 
U.S.-Peruvian policy of attacking suspected drug smuggling aircraft 
is a blatant violation of international law.

"Nothing justifies a no-questions-asked destruction of civilian 
aircraft," said Phil Boyer, president of the International Council of 
Aircraft Owner and Pilot Associations, which represents 400,000 
pilots in 56 countries. "We would have thought the nations of the 
world would have learned an important lesson from the downing of 
Korean Air Lines 007 in 1984."

Indeed, after the Soviet Union shot down KAL 007, the United States 
argued vociferously that there was never any justification for firing 
on a civilian plane.

"The technology is available to be cautious and patient before taking 
such a final action," said Pete West, vice president for government 
affairs at the National Business Aircraft Association, which opposed 
President Clinton's 1994 decision to support Peru's policy of downing 
suspected drug smuggling planes.

West added that when he heard that a Peruvian jet, guided by a U.S. 
surveillance plane, had fired on a single-engine Cessna last week, 
killing an American missionary and her baby daughter, "my thoughts 
rushed quickly to the most important argument we and others made 
against this dangerous approach to drug interdiction: the serious 
risk to innocent lives."

Many pilots associations pointed out that in the mid-1980s a United 
Nations agency, the International Civil Aviation Organization, made 
the shooting down of any civilian aircraft a violation of 
international law. It allowed just one exception: if a civilian plane 
is engaged in a military attack, such as an attempt to crash into a 
government facility.

The ICAO provision was adopted by more than the 102 countries 
required for ratification. But the United States never approved it, 
because some members of Congress and senior officials worried that it 
could be construed as an admission that the United States was subject 
to the International Court of Justice.

The ICAO provision also made clear that the military of any country 
has the right to intercept civilian aircraft, and a civilian plane is 
obliged to follow the military aircraft's instructions. To avoid the 
communications breakdowns that were thought to be part of the Russian 
downing of KAL 007, specific procedures and signals were adopted.

Those procedures, printed in pilot manuals worldwide, amount to a 
midair dance in which every wing movement and maneuver has meaning. 
It also sets a standard for radio contact. "In all situations, the 
interceptor aircrew will use caution to avoid startling the 
intercepted aircrew and/or passengers," the procedures say.

Nonetheless, communications breakdowns also apparently led to the 
U.S. military downing of an Iranian civilian aircraft in 1988.

"The theme here, whenever we've had a problem, is the failure to 
communicate," said Irene Howie, a Washington aviation lawyer who was 
the Federal Aviation Administration's assistant chief counsel for 
international affairs until 1990.

In that job, Howie helped enforce the first Bush administration's 
strong opposition to any exception to the international ban on using 
force against civilian aircraft. Repeatedly in the 1980s, members of 
Congress tried to allow the U.S. Customs Service, the Coast Guard and 
other agencies to fire on planes suspected of carrying drugs. "It was 
like a Hydra," Howie said. "One head would be cut off and another 
would grow."

In 1994, the Clinton administration reversed U.S. policy and decided 
to support the efforts by Peru and Colombia to intercept and, if 
necessary, shoot down drug-smuggling flights. Congress passed 
legislation granting immunity from prosecution to U.S. officials who 
assisted in that effort.

"Many of us thought, and still think, that countenancing the Peruvian 
and Colombian shoot-down policies was a terrible mistake and created 
an awful precedent," said Jeffrey N. Shane, a lawyer who was 
assistant secretary for policy and international affairs at the 
Transportation Department in the first Bush administration.
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