MISSIONARY PILOT FAULTED IN PERU SHOOTDOWN

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An investigation into the downing of a missionary
airplane by a Peruvian air force jet searching for drug runners has
determined that the civilian pilot was partly to blame for the crash in
which a woman and a baby were killed, CBS News reported on Monday.

The missionary plane "wasn't blameless," the "CBS Evening News with Dan
Rather" quoted a senior administration official as saying. "They didn't do
everything they were supposed to do" to avoid being mistaken for a drug
plane, the official said.

The pilot of the missionary airplane, Kevin Donaldson, filed a round-trip
flight plan from Iquitos, Peru, to Islandia in the Amazon river on the
border with Colombia and Brazil.

But he did not refile the plan when he began the return leg of the flight
with passengers Jim and Veronica Bowers and their two children, Cory, 6,
and adopted baby Charity, 7 months, CBS reported.

When the missionary plane was detected by a CIA drug surveillance plane,
the Peruvian air force could not find the flight plan and scrambled one of
its jets to intercept the aircraft.

Donaldson also did not have his radio tuned to the proper frequency and as
a result did not hear a warning from the Peruvian jet, CBS said. According
to one account, Donaldson's radio actually was turned off, it said.

CBS said a lawyer for Bowers' missionary society, the Association of
Baptists for World Evangelism, declined to comment on the report.

Veronica Bowers, 35, and Charity were killed when the Peruvian jet opened
fire on the missionary Cessna 185 float plane, which then crash-landed in
the Amazon. Donaldson was injured but he, Jim Bowers and Cory Bowers all
survived.

The CIA surveillance plane carrying three American crew and a Peruvian
liaison officer initially brought the plane to the attention of the
Peruvian military.

U.S. officials say the Americans, all hired from an outside contractor,
subsequently told the Peruvian officer they doubted the plane was running
drugs and tried to get him to call off the Peruvian air force jet.

CBS quoted U.S. officials as saying Donaldson's mistakes did not justify
the Peruvian decision to open fire on the plane.

"Even if a pilot makes these technical errors, we have to have a system
that does not shoot down innocent aircraft," CBS quoted one official as saying.

CBS said the incident was captured on video by the CIA plane. The tape
showed no evidence the Peruvian jet waggled his wings, made hand signals or
fired warning shots in an effort to communicate with the Cessna, it said.

"No matter what," CBS quoted an official as saying, "the Peruvians blew
through procedures way too quick."