DRUG-ERADICATION PLANE MISSING IN BAHAMAS

A small plane that was part of a Colombian drug-eradication program
disappeared Monday in the Bahamas on its way to Patrick Air Force Base in
Cocoa Beach, State Department and Coast Guard officials said.

The two-seater plane left the Turks and Caicos Islands early Monday
morning, said Susan Pittman, a State Department spokeswoman in Washington, D.C.

The Federal Aviation Administration told the pilot to try to land in
Freeport, but that was the last contact with the aircraft, said Verla
Davis, a spokeswoman at Patrick, home of the State Department Air Wing. She
said she did not know why the pilot was urged to land.

The Coast Guard said the only person aboard was a pilot with 20 years of
experience with the State Department, which contracts with Virginia-based
DynCorp to do the spray program. The pilot's identity was not released.

Pittman said the plane was on its way back from Colombia when it stopped in
the Turks on Sunday night. It took off Monday morning.

At about 10:20 a.m., the Miami Airport Control Tower lost communication
with the pilot.

Early today, the Coast Guard still had one plane searching for the aircraft.

Petty Officer Robert Suddarth said the pilot might have been looking for a
spot to land because of bad weather conditions.

Pittman said she also was briefed that there might have been problems with
the weather.

In 1996, the Clinton administration quietly contracted with U.S. civilian
pilots to fly drug-crop eradication missions over Colombian territory that
is protected by well-armed guerrillas working in concert with narcotics
traffickers.

Eradication pilots have one of the most perilous jobs in the drug war,
flying at treetop level over coca and poppy fields protected by armed
rebels and growers.