Pubdate: Mon, 23 Apr 2001
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2001 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Bob Drogin, Times Staff Writer
Note: Times staff writers Janet Hook in Washington and Robin Wright in 
Quebec City contributed to this report

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.
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MAP posted-by: Beth