U.S. IDENTIFIED BAPTISTS' PLANE AS DRUG CARRIER

WASHINGTON, April 21 -- The airplane carrying American missionaries that
was shot down on Friday in Peru had been mistakenly identified as a carrier
of contraband drugs, a State Department official said tonight.

The official declined to say whether the mistake was made by a United
States aircraft, but there was American surveillance plane in the area that
was communicating with Peruvian military aircraft.

A missionary and her infant daughter were killed when the plane, a Cessna
185, was downed by fire from a Peruvian Air Force fighter jet.

The United States surveillance flights were suspended pending an
investigation of the incident.

"An unarmed U.S. government tracking aircraft was in the area and provided
location data for the subsequent intercept mission that was conducted by
the Peruvian Air Force," the State Department official said.

The United States and Peru have had a long-standing project in which
American spotters inform Peruvian interceptors when they spot what they
think are drug runners.

Those killed in the downing of the American plane were Veronica Bowers, 35,
a missionary with the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, and her
daughter, Charity, 7 months old.

The Rev. E. C. Haskell, a spokesman for the association, which is based in
Morgantown, Pa., said that the missionaries' pilot, Kevin Donaldson, was
wounded.

Ms. Bowers's husband, Jim, 37, and their son, Cory, 6, were also on the
plane and were not wounded, Mr. Haskell said.

The United States Customs Service flies surveillance planes into what it
calls the "source zone" for drugs, but a spokesman, Dennis Murphy, said
today that his agency's planes were not involved in tracking the
missionaries' plane on Friday. A Customs Service radar plane based in the
Caribbean was flying in Colombia on Friday, but it was far north of the
path taken by the Cessna 185 and did not observe it, Mr. Murphy said.

The Customs Service has a P-3, a four-engine turboprop, the same kind of
plane that the Navy uses to track enemy submarines, based in the Caribbean.

Normal practice for the Customs Service is that once a radar plane locates
a suspicious plane in flight, it radios for a Citation, a smaller plane
that can fly at low speeds, to observe the target visually.

Both the radar plane and the observation plane carry a representative from
the host country, said Mr. Murphy, who communicates directly with the air
force of the country involved.

Recently, he said, the observation plane saw a small plane land on a dirt
strip, and saw bales being loaded unto mules; ground forces from the host
country arrived in time to intercept the drugs, he said.

The State Department official said tonight: "We are very saddened by this
tragic accident and extend our sympathy and condolences to the family,
their friends and relatives."

The official said that the downed plane was flying in northern Peru near
the Colombia border, flying from Leticia, Colombia, toward Iquitos, Peru.
Colombia has long been a major source of cocaine and other drugs reaching
the United States, prompting the United States surveillance flights in the
region.

"Pending a thorough investigation and review by Peruvian and U.S. officials
of how this tragic incident took place, the provision of location data by
the U.S. and the conduct of intradiction flights have been suspended," the
State Department official said.

The official said: "For a number of years, the United States has provided
assistance to Peru in detecting and monitoring suspect aircraft passing
through designated airspace in an effort to stem the flow of illegal drugs.
This is a United States government program in which a number of U.S.
agencies are involved, including the State Department, the Central
Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the Drug Enforcement
Administration and others.

"Peruvian authorities are responsible for identifying the aircraft and
deciding on any action. We are working closely with Peruvian authorities to
determine exactly how this tragic incident took place."

Earlier today, before the State Department had issued its statement, at the
gathering of Western Hemisphere nations in Quebec, President Bush said:
"The United States is certainly upset by the fact that two citizens lost
their lives. I will wait to see all the facts before I reach any
conclusions about blame."