BANKRUPTCY HINDERS U.S. DRUG SPRAYING PLANS

WASHINGTON -- The State Department will delay plans to expand its fleet of
drug spraying planes in Colombia after the planes' bankrupt manufacturer
shut down its assembly lines this month.

The delay is a setback to the $1.3 billion, U.S.-funded plan to step up
drug eradication in Colombia. Since the mid-1990s, State Department
contractors have worked with Colombian police in fumigating coca and opium
crops, the raw materials for cocaine and heroin.

Ayres Corp. of Albany, Ga., halted production Aug. 3, just five days before
it was due to deliver the first of nine single-engine, propeller-driven
T-65 planes.

Those planes, along with three twin-engine OV-10 planes that the State
Department is refurbishing, would have increased the 11-plane fleet to 23
planes by February.

Congress provided $20 million for the Ayres planes and the refurbished OV-10s.