MISSIONARY SAYS DRUG SURVEILLANCE SHOULD RESUME QUICKLY

PENSACOLA - A missionary says the United States should quickly resume
drug surveillance flights suspended after his wife and adopted baby
were killed in Peru when they were mistaken for drug smugglers and
shot down.

Jim Bowers, who survived unharmed when their small plane crash landed
after being fired upon by a Peruvian warplane April 20, said Monday he
has expressed that view in a call to Secretary of State Colin Powell's
office.

"To say there needs to be an entire review of the whole program and
suspend it and to let the drug people continue their business as usual
is wrong," Bowers said at a news conference.

He said it should take investigators no more than a day to figure out
the shooting was a simple error.

The Peruvian air force failed to contact a control tower that was in
radio contact with the missionaries' float plane before shooting at it
without first firing any warning shots, Bowers said.

"The main error in this whole thing is they were too quick to the
trigger," he said. "I don't hold anyone responsible. It was a mistake
as though someone fell asleep at the wheel and ran into us in a vehicle."

A U.S. Central Intelligence Agency aircraft had detected the
missionaries' plane and notified the Peruvian air force. American
officials say the surveillance crew, however, had advised it appeared,
from the way the plane was flying, that it was not a drug smuggling
flight.

Bowers, 38, of Muskegon, Mich., was in Pensacola for the funeral and
burial Sunday of his wife, Veronica "Roni" Bowers, 35, and their
7-month-old daughter, Charity.

The couple's 6-year-old son, Cory, also survived uninjured, but the
plane's pilot, Kevin Donaldson, 41, of Morgantown, Pa., was wounded.

Bowers spoke to reporters at Marcus Pointe Baptist Church where the
funeral service was held. His wife's parents, John and Gloria Luttig,
of nearby Pace, are members of the church, which had helped support
the couple's missionary work.

Bowers expressed his forgiveness to all involved at the funeral and
during a memorial service Friday at his home church in Michigan. He
said Monday he also hopes to talk personally with the Peruvian pilot
who fired on their plane.

"I'm looking forward to that some day, but right now, I'm praying for
him," Bowers said.

Although insisting he wasn't placing blame, Bowers said the pilot
failed to give the missionaries a chance to land before he started
shooting.

"I was assuming, because I've watched movies just like you all have,
that there would be some kind of communication, they would come up
next to us and let us know what they wanted," Bowers told reporters.

The air force plane swooped by a half-dozen times and begin firing
only five or 10 minutes after the first pass, he said.

"Any decent air force pilot would give the other aircraft time to
understand his intentions," Bowers said. " I just thought this is way
too soon for them to be shooting already."

He said he saw a puff of smoke from the front of the warplane and told
Donaldson he thought it was shooting at them just as the bullets began
ripping through their aircraft. A single bullet instantly killed his
wife and daughter.

Bowers said neither he nor anyone else from his family or church has
been in contact with the baby's natural parents, but he said they knew
she had been killed.

The couple's missionary work also has been supported by Calvary Church
in Fruitport, Mich., and the Association of Baptists for World
Evangelism, based in New Cumberland, Pa.