U.S. HAD ROLE IN DOWNING PLANE

U.S. Drug Surveillance Plane Passed Along Information That Peru Pilot
Used To Shoot Down Missionary Flight, Killing A Woman And Infant

WASHINGTON - A U.S. government surveillance plane flying over
northern Peru had identified a small aircraft carrying American
missionaries as a possible drug flight and passed the information to
the Peruvian Air Force shortly before a Peruvian fighter jet shot it
from the sky Friday morning, U.S. sources said.

A mother and her 7 month old daughter were killed by rounds fired
from the Peruvian plane. The missionary plane, a Cessna 185 that was
flying from the Colombian border to-ward the city of Iquitos, 620
miles northeast of Jima, tumbled to an emergency landing in the
Amazon River. The pilot, who was shot in the leg survived, as did the
woman's husband and another child.

The U.S. government plane, a twin-engine Cessna Citation jet, was
piloted by a civilian working under the auspices of the U.S. Embassy
in Jima. The U.S. Customs Service operates such flights routinely
over Peruvian airspace in search of low-flying drug-runners. Under a
long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement with Peru, the United
States passes information on suspect planes to the Peruvian military,
which has a policy of intercepting the aircraft and forcing them to
land or shooting them down.

Peruvian military officials insisted Saturday that the crew of their
A-37B fighter followed "international procedures of identification
and interception" spelled out in the intelligence agreement. They
said the missionaries' flight failed to respond to radio messages and
signals to land.

U.S. officials in Washington said that an investigation had been
launched into the incident, and that the Peruvian government had
pledged full cooperation. In Quebec City where he was attending the
Summit of the Americas, President Bush expressed sorrow over what the
White House called a "tragic accident."

There were sharp differences between Peru's insistence that correct
procedures had been followed and the version provided by the U.S.-
based Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, whose members
were aboard the flight. Rev. E. C. Haskell, a spokesman for the
missionary group, said the pilot, Kevin Donaldson, had filed a flight
plan at Iquitos. Donaldson was described as an experienced pilot in
the Peruvian Amazon, a region where protestant missionaries have been
heavily active for decades.

Haskeli said Donaldson maintained radio contact with air traffic
controllers at the Iquitos airport throughout the flight. He said the
Peruvian military did not communicate with, Donaldson, by radio or
otherwise, before shots were filed directly into the aircraft.

The Pentagon moved quickly Saturday to disassociate itself with
Friday's incident, and to note that the U.S. government aircraft
involved was not operated by any of the five U.S. military services.