CIA MISIDENTIFIED PLANE DOWNED IN PERU AS POSSIBLE DRUG RUNNER

Accident: U.S. Says Crew On Surveillance Aircraft Tried To Rein In Military
Action That Killed 2 Americans

WASHINGTON--A CIA crew flying a narcotics surveillance mission over the
Amazon misidentified a small aircraft carrying a family of U.S.
missionaries as a possible drug smuggling operation, prompting the Peruvian
air force to shoot down the plane, a senior U.S. intelligence official said
Sunday.

But the official insisted that the CIA-hired pilot, co-pilot and systems
analyst repeatedly tried to convince a Peruvian air force officer aboard
their jet that he was acting too quickly in ordering an attack on the
single-engine floatplane.

The three Americans then watched from a mile away as a two-seater Peruvian
fighter jet fired machine-gun rounds into the unarmed Cessna and forced it
down onto a river. A Baptist missionary and her infant daughter were
killed. Peruvians in a dugout canoe rescued the dead woman's husband and
son and the injured pilot.

Details of the incident were described by U.S. authorities Sunday as the
three survivors returned to the United States and President Bush announced
that similar surveillance flights were being canceled until the cause of
the accident could be determined.

The three Americans on the surveillance mission were not full-time CIA
staffers but work under contract for the agency, according to the senior
intelligence official, who requested anonymity as a matter of government
policy. Many covert CIA operations hire pilots and other operatives through
contracts or front companies. U.S. officials declined to identify the three.

The incident, which occurred at midday Friday in northern Peru, was a stark
reminder of the series of targeting errors by the CIA that led a U.S.
bomber to mistakenly strike the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the 1999
Kosovo conflict in Yugoslavia.

In this case, the senior intelligence official insisted that the CIA had
done nothing wrong because the crew had repeatedly warned that the plane's
identity was in doubt.

"Everybody regrets the loss of life, but from what I've seen, our people
acted professionally and appropriately," the official said.

Bush, speaking to reporters at the conclusion of the Summit of the Americas
in Quebec City, said the United States was still trying to determine what
caused the deadly mistake.

"We've suspended such flights until we get to the bottom of the situation,
fully understand all the facts, to understand what went wrong in this
terrible tragedy," he said.

Bush said U.S. personnel have been assisting Latin American allies by
tracking and identifying aircraft that could be ferrying cocaine and other
narcotics and by passing information on to local military authorities.

Congress passed a law in 1994 that allows the CIA and other U.S. government
employees to assist foreign nations in the interdiction of aircraft when
there is "reasonable suspicion" that the plane is primarily engaged in
illicit drug trafficking.

The law limits U.S. assistance to those countries with "appropriate
procedures . . . to protect against innocent loss of life" and that "at a
minimum include effective means to identify and warn an aircraft" before an
attack is launched.

Peru was approved for such assistance on Dec. 8, 1994. Since then, the
Peruvians have shot, forced down or strafed more than 30 drug-running
aircraft and seized more than a dozen on the ground, according to U.S.
officials. None of these incidents were known to involve innocent
civilians, until now.

Several U.S. agencies are involved in the program, including the State
Department, the CIA, the Defense Department and the Drug Enforcement
Administration.

In this case, the CIA crew members were aboard a small two-engine
surveillance jet on patrol at 9:43 a.m. Friday when they notified their
base--which U.S. officials refused to identify--that their sophisticated
radar was tracking a small aircraft that had crossed three or four miles
into Brazilian territory.

The Americans radioed a second report 12 minutes later, as the unidentified
aircraft reentered Peruvian airspace. At that point, following standard
procedures, the Americans requested that the Peruvian air force officer in
charge at an air base at Pucallpa determine whether the plane was on an
approved flight plan.

The U.S. intelligence official said the officer could not find an approved
flight plan for a plane in the border area, which is covered by airspace
known as the Air Defense Identification Zone.

Under procedures approved by the commanding general of the Peruvian Air
Force 6th Territorial Air Region, the Peruvian air force then launched a
fighter jet to visually identify the aircraft, verify its registry, attempt
to establish radio contact and, if necessary, force it to land or shoot it
down.

The aircraft was quickly identified as a single-engine, high-wing floatplane.

The Peruvian lieutenant colonel aboard the U.S. plane then tried to
communicate in Spanish with the aircraft over three separate radio
frequencies but heard no response. The Americans did not try to communicate
in English.

"Our guys would never try to communicate with the suspect aircraft," said
the U.S. intelligence official. "In any case, we're told the pilot was
fluent in Spanish. But we didn't hear anything. If he was transmitting, we
weren't hearing it in English or Spanish."

The Peruvian officer aboard the U.S. plane had flown numerous similar
flights over the last nine months or so. He told the pilot of the Peruvian
fighter, an aging A-37, to go to "Phase 2" and fire warning shots at the
floatplane.

It was unclear Sunday whether the pilot actually fired a warning with
tracer rounds or, if they were fired, whether the pilot or passengers saw
them. The U.S. intelligence official said the CIA crew did not see any
warning shots fired.

The Peruvian officer then quickly requested permission from his commander
on the ground to order the fighter to move to "Phase 3"--to fire his
weapons with the goal of disabling the Cessna. If that failed, the plane
could be shot down.

The U.S. intelligence official said the CIA crew "attempted repeatedly to
slow the intercept process" and "voiced objections" and expressed "serious
concerns" when the fighter plane was authorized to fire.

The CIA crew members were "not in the chain of command," the official said.
"They just kept questioning him. They kept saying: 'Are you sure. It's not
clear to us.' " The U.S. crew then asked the Peruvian fighter pilot to note
the suspect plane's tail number and to fly alongside it to ensure that the
other pilot saw him. For reasons still unclear Sunday, the tail number was
not radioed back to the Peruvian officer in Pucallpa.

But at 10:43 a.m., an hour after the plane was spotted by the CIA crew,
Peruvian military authorities on the ground authorized the shoot-down..

The U.S. official said "well-established procedures . . . may not have been
fully or properly adhered to" by Peruvian air force authorities.

An official at the destination airport in Iquitos said the missionaries'
plane did not have a flight plan when it took off Friday morning from
Islandia near the Brazilian border, the Associated Press reported. But the
pilot relayed the necessary information when he radioed the control tower
in Iquitos, airport chief Mario Justo was quoted as saying.

During the brief radio conversation, the missionary pilot said a military
plane was nearby, according to the AP report. "He added in his report that
there had been a military plane, but that he did not know what it wanted,"
Justo said.

In Pennsylvania, an official with the Assn. of Baptists for World
Evangelism said it appeared that the accident occurred because the
missionary plane was using a civilian radio frequency to communicate with
the Iquitos airport, while the Peruvian air force personnel were using a
military frequency.

Neither side could hear the other's transmissions, said Hank Scheltema, the
Baptist association's aviation director, according to a Reuters report.

The missionary pilot "was saying to the tower: 'They're going to kill us!
They're killing us! They're killing us! And he tried to communicate [with
the Peruvian plane], but they were on different frequencies," Scheltema said.

The attack killed Veronica Bowers, 35, a missionary with the Baptist group,
and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity.

Veronica Bowers' husband, Jim, 37, and their son, Cory, 6, were aboard the
plane but escaped injury. They arrived in Raleigh, N.C., Sunday to stay
with relatives.

The Baptist group said the plane's pilot, Kevin Donaldson, suffered gunshot
wounds to both legs and was admitted to the Reading Hospital and Medical
Center in West Reading, Pa. He was undergoing surgery late Sunday.