SUSPECTED DRUG PLANE DOWNED

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Air force fighter jets shot down a small plane suspected
of narcotics running in the central Amazon near the border with Brazil,
authorities said yesterday.

The jets downed the plane with machine-gun fire Monday over jungle about
370 miles northeast of Lima after its pilot failed to respond to radio
messages and ignored warning shots, the air force said. Police were
searching for the wreckage; the fate of the plane's occupants was not known.

In the early 1990s, President Alberto Fujimori adopted tough anti-narcotics
policies to eliminate Peru's infamous title as the world's largest producer
of coca, the raw material used to make cocaine.

The measures included shooting down some 25 drug planes en route from camps
in Peru's Amazon to Colombian cocaine refineries. The air force said the
last time a suspected plane was shot down was 1997.