FOG HAMPERS SEARCH FOR US PLANE DOWNED IN COLOMBIA

MIAMI (Reuters) - Teams searching for a missing U.S. military
reconnaissance plane in a rebel-occupied area of southern Colombia have
found a crash site but bad weather blocked efforts to reach it early
Monday, a U.S. spokeswoman said.

The plane went down while on a routine anti-drug mission before dawn Friday
with five U.S. army personnel and two Colombians aboard.

It had been flying over a region rife with leftist rebels and illegal
plantations of coca -- the raw material for cocaine.

Lieutenant Jane Campbell, spokeswoman for the Miami-based U.S. Southern
Command, said airborne searchers late Sunday found a crash site but had so
far been unable to confirm it was the U.S. plane, a De Havilland RC-7.

Bad fog had prevented helicopters from getting near enough to put down
rescue teams. The fog was still hampering efforts Monday morning, she said.

"They got close but not close enough to confirm," Campbell said. "This is
extremely dense vegetation, absolutely rugged terrain, there is no way of
driving to the site."

Rescue teams would likely have to shimmy down ropes from the choppers to
the ground, she added.

Despite the discovery of a crash site, the search was still going on over
other parts of the region until it was ascertained the debris was the
downed plane.

So far there was nothing to indicate the plane had been shot down by
rebels, Campbell added.

U.S. and Colombian personnel are jointly conducting the search in the
jungles that divide southern Putumayo and Narino provinces, close to the
border with Ecuador.

"At one point we had up to 25 aircraft in the search operation," Campbell
said.

It is thought to be the first time in the history of Washington's fight
against drug trafficking that U.S. troops have disappeared during
operations in Colombia.

The remote region is a stronghold of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) guerrillas. Colombian authorities have conceded there was a risk the
rebels could reach possible survivors before rescuers but SOUTHCOM's Col.
John Snyder said he was not aware of any FARC presence around the crash site.

The United States and Colombia brand the country's 20,000 rebel fighters
"narco-terrorists" and say they earn an estimated $600 million a year from
the drug trade.

The top U.S. anti-drug official, Barry McCaffrey, spoke in Miami Sunday on
his way to Bogota and conceded the United States was now making little
distinction between the war on drugs and the fight against the guerrillas.

Washington has funneled some $280 million in counter-narcotics aid into
Colombia -- making it the third largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world.