U.S. SAYS CREW TRIED TO SLOW ATTACK

Missionaries Dispute Explanation By Peru

WASHINGTON -- 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, U.S. officials said yesterday.

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

Three survivors of the crash returned to the United States yesterday and
officials of their mission vehemently disputed Peruvian accounts of
Friday's incident, saying that the plane was easily identifiable by its
markings and that its pilot had filed a flight plan and had been in radio
contact with the airport where he intended to land. They said the Peruvian
military plane opened fire without warning.

The U.S. surveillance plane's crew members, who were American contract
employees of the CIA, 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 CIA 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 U.S. planes that are used in a
long-standing 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, and
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 Bush 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 no warning they were about to be attacked.

The single-engine plane had contacted the air tower in the jungle city of
Iquitos and received landing clearance about 10 minutes before it was
downed, said Richmond Donaldson, father of pilot Kevin Donaldson.

"Here was a plane following a regular route. Drug runners do not follow
regular routes," he said.

The Baptist group's director of aviation, Hank Scheltema, said the
missionary plane and the fighter jet were communicating on different radio
frequencies. He said the Iquitos control tower recorded the missionary
pilot's panicked radio call to controllers.

"They have recorded his voice when he was crying, 'They're going to kill
us! They're going to kill us!' " Scheltema said.

The pilot's brother, Gordon Donaldson, said the airplane had been based in
Peru for 13 years and was one of only a handful of civilian airplanes based
at the Iquitos airport. It was well known to local civil aviation
authorities, he said.

After being hit by the gunfire, the Cessna 185 crash-landed in the Amazon
River near the jungle town of Huanta, about 625 miles northeast of Lima.
The survivors clung to the pontoons in the river. Peruvians rescued the
pilot, 42-year-old Kevin Donaldson, who suffered a crushed leg bone and
severed arteries in his foot caused by the gunfire, and the husband and son
of the woman killed in the shooting.

A burst of shots killed Bowers and her newly adopted baby. The survivors
were Bowers' husband, James, 37; their son Cory, 6; and pilot Donaldson.
James Bowers, his son and Donaldson arrived in the United States yesterday
from Peru.

Pastor William Rudd of the Calvary Church in Muskegon, Mich., which
supported the work of the Bowers family, said yesterday after talking to
James 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 yesterday 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, Bush
said he would withhold judgment until an investigation was completed.
American tracking missions have been suspended pending the investigation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.