U.S. CREW SAYS IT TRIED TO BLOCK ATTACK IN PERU

WASHINGTON, April 22 -The crew of an American surveillance plane tracking
suspected drug-runners in Peru objected as the Peruvian Air Force rushed to
attack a small plane carrying American missionaries, United States
officials said today.

The attack, on Friday, killed one missionary, Veronica Bowers, and her
7-month-old daughter, Charity.

The surveillance plane's crew, who were American contract employees of the
Central Intelligence Agency, raised repeated objections that the
missionaries' plane had not yet been identified, the American officials said.

Despite their objections, a Peruvian officer aboard the American tracking
plane called in a Peruvian interceptor jet, which moved quickly to attack
the small plane.

In their account, the officials said the Peruvian military might have
broken the rules of engagement arranged by the two countries for anti- drug
operations.

The Peruvian A-37 jet flew close enough to the missionaries' plane, a
single-engine Cessna equipped with pontoons, to get its identifying tail
number before opening fire, but it apparently did not relay the
registration number to the authorities on the ground, and it is not known
whether it fired warning shots, the officials said.

"Our people attempted to slow down the intercept," a senior official said.
"They asked them to get the tail number of the plane. There were a number
of concerns by our crew that procedures may not have been followed or may
have been rushed."

During the interception, the American plane was about a mile away, one
official said.

The unarmed American tracking plane -- a Cessna Citation jet owned by the
Air Force -- was flown by a crew of three Americans under a C.I.A.
contract; they were a pilot, a co-pilot and a technician, officials said.
Also on board was the Peruvian officer, whose job was to direct Peru's
military interceptors to suspicious planes.

The tracking aircraft, one of many United States planes that are used in a
longstanding program to help Peru and Colombia choke off the cocaine trade,
played a crucial role in spotting the missionaries' plane and raising
suspicions about its flight, according to the American officials. But they
insisted that Peru's military was in command and control of drug
interceptions, despite considerable support from the American military,
anti-drug and intelligence agencies.

A statement issued by American officials said that "the U.S. crew was not
in the Peruvian military chain of command, and had no authority or
operational control over" the Peruvian officer on the Citation or over
those in the attacking plane.

As the administration officials released their first, sketchy version of
what happened, survivors of the episode said they had been in communication
with Peruvian air traffic controllers during the flight and insisted that
they had had no warning that they were about to be attacked.

A round of shots killed Ms. Bowers and her newly adopted baby. Ms. Bowers'
husband, James; their son Cory, 6; and the pilot, Kevin Donaldson, who
crash-landed the plane in the Amazon River, survived.

Friends of the survivors said they had learned that the Peruvian jet
swooped in low and strafed the survivors as they clung to burning wreckage
after the plane crashed in the river.

One of the friends, Pastor William Rudd of the Calvary Church in Muskegon,
Mich., which supported the work of the Bowers family, said today after
talking to Mr. Bowers on the phone that "there was no radio contact" with
the Peruvian Air Force before the attack. He said the downed plane carried
standard markings, as well as a large dove painted on the fuselage.

American officials, describing the hour between the time when the
missionaries' plane was first sighted and when it was shot down, said the
Peruvian authorities might not have followed established procedures.

The officials said the Peruvian officer on the tracking plane did try three
times, using different frequencies and speaking in Spanish, to talk to the
plane that was being followed, but had heard no response.

President Bush said today that the United States' role in assisting Peru's
forces is simply to "pass on information" about possible drug smuggling.

Speaking at the conclusion of the Summit of the Americas in Quebec, Mr.
Bush said he would withhold judgment until an investigation was completed.
American tracking missions have been suspended pending the investigation.

"Our government is involved with helping, and a variety of agencies are
involved with helping, our friends in South America identify airplanes that
might be carrying illegal drugs," Mr. Bush said. "These operations have
been going on for quite a while."

He said the American government's role was to "provide information as to
tail numbers" or "help identify planes that fail to file flight plans."

United States officials said the American tracking aircraft notified its
base of a radar sighting of the plane at about 9:43 a.m. local time Friday.
The plane crossed a few miles into Brazil and then meandered back into
Peruvian airspace. The tracking aircraft asked Peruvian officials on the
ground if there was a flight plan for the plane, and were told that none
could be located.

At that point, the Peruvian authorities decided to launch an armed
interceptor to investigate. That plane shot the missionaries down.

According to the American officials, under standard procedures the Peruvian
Air Force takes control of operations from the time it decides to launch
interceptor aircraft. The American crew's only role, they said, is
detection and tracking of suspect planes.

Peru several years ago began shooting down smugglers' planes if they
refused to land when intercepted. But the United States refused for a time
to provide tracking and targeting information to their militaries, fearing
that the United States could be held culpable for killing civilians. Peru
has shot, forced down or strafed more than 30 planes and seized more than a
dozen on the ground since 1995.

The American operational support resumed that year after Congress passed a
law absolving the United States and foreign authorities and contractors of
liability for downing aircraft "reasonably suspected" of drug trafficking
in foreign countries. Under the law, the United States may assist countries
only once there were "appropriate procedures in place to protect against
innocent loss of life in the air and on the ground in connection with
interdiction, which shall at a minimum include effective means to identify
and warn an aircraft before the use of force."

American officials said that the interception rules had been practiced
extensively, and that since an incident in 1997 when the rules were broken,
ground schools review them frequently.

Whether the warning and identification requirements were met on Friday
remained in dispute today, as the Peruvian government, the United States
officials and the missionaries offered varying accounts of what happened.

The Peruvian Air Force has said the missionaries had flown into Peruvian
airspace from Brazil without filing a flight plan, an omission that raised
suspicions about its cargo. In a communique issue on Saturday, the Peruvian
Air Force said it had opened fire on the missionaries' plane after it
failed to follow in-air directions to land.

An airport official in Iquitos, Peru, where the missionaries' plane was
headed, told The Associated Press that the plane had established a flight
plan by radio when it was in the air and had radioed the control tower
several times.

Relatives and friends of Mr. Bowers, 37, and Mr. Donaldson, the Cessna's
pilot, said today that they had filed a flight plane and had reported to
Peru's air traffic authorities by radio before the attack.

Phil Bowers, who was not on the missionaries' plane but sat in on an
interview between his brother James and a Peruvian air force colonel, told
The Associate Press that his brother said the Peruvian military had made no
attempt to communicate over the radio before two or three jets opened fire.
The American officials spoke only of a single Peruvian interceptor.

Mr. Bowers, his son, Cory, and Mr. Donaldson, who was seriously wounded in
both legs, arrived in the United States today from Peru. The adults on
board the missionaries' plane were members of the Association of Baptists
for World Evangelism, based in Harrisburg, Pa.