PLANE CARRYING AMERICANS SHOT DOWN

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- A Peruvian air force plane shot down a private plane
carrying American missionaries in Peru's Amazon jungle region, a U.S.
embassy spokesman said Friday.

``Apparently the Peruvian pilot mistook it for an airplane transporting
contraband drugs,'' Benjamin Ziff told The Associated Press.

The embassy could not yet confirm anything about injuries or deaths
among the passengers or crew, he added.

Mario Justo, chief of the Iquitos airport, said that a single-engine
plane belonging to a Baptist missionary institute crashed en route to
Iquitos on Friday.

Justo said the plane was scheduled to arrive in Iquitos at 11:20 a.m.

Radioprogramas, Peru's most authoritative radio station, said an
American woman and her 7-month old daughter traveling on the plane were
killed in the crash, which occurred Friday morning near the jungle town
of Pebas, about 700 miles northeast of Lima.

The two bodies were brought to the city morgue of Iquitos, the capital
of Amazonas province and 100 miles from Pebas, Radioprogramas reported.

``We do not have more details. For now we are working on confirming the
identities of the bodies,'' Iquitos prosecutor Pedro Rios told
Radioprogramas. He said two others were injured in the crash.

U.S. embassy personnel were traveling to the crash scene late Friday,
Ziff said.

Between 1994 and 1997, Peru shot down about 25 suspected drug planes on
their way from camps in Peru's Amazon to Colombian cocaine refineries.

The actions were the result of former President Alberto Fujimori's tough
anti-narcotics policies in an effort to reducing trafficking in coca,
the raw material used to make cocaine.

In July, Fujimori said the country would use its fleet of 18
Russian-made Sukhoi-25 fighter jets in the anti-drug fight. The planes
were originally bought for its conflict with Ecuador, which ended in
1998.