Pubdate: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 Source: USA Today (US) Copyright: 2001 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc Contact: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nfront.htm Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/466 Author: Jack Kelly A PUFF OF SMOKE, AND THEN CHAOS AT 4,000 FEET DRUG WAR OVER PERU Missionary worker Jim Bowers peered uneasily out the front passenger window of a Cessna 185 floatplane. To his right: a Peruvian air force fighter jet. It had been tailing the Cessna for about 15 minutes. Suddenly, there was a puff of smoke from the fighter. Bullets pierced the missionary plane in machine-gun fashion. The jet flew under the Cessna, reappeared on its left and fired again. A bullet hit the Cessna's left wing, where fuel was stored. A fire erupted and rushed through the fuel line into the plane. Flames shot up from the floor of the cockpit, engulfing pilot Kevin Donaldson's feet. A bullet struck his right leg, shattering two bones. Sitting next to Donaldson, Bowers felt the breeze of a bullet speeding past him. He handed his infant daughter, Charity, back to her mother, Roni, and opened a window to let out smoke. Their son Cory, 6, leaned forward to stick his head out the window, gasping for air. The bullets kept coming. One hit Roni Bowers in the back, continued out her chest and into Charity's head. Roni slumped forward in her seat. Charity fell out of her lap. The plane, on fire, plunged toward the Amazon River. "They're killing us!" Donaldson shouted in Spanish to the control tower in Iquitos, Peru. "They're killing us!" As U.S. and Peruvian authorities continue to investigate why the missionaries were mistaken for drug traffickers and shot out of the sky, the horror that unfolded aboard the crippled Cessna on April 20 is just now becoming clear. Through more than three dozen interviews, documents and an unreleased tape of a cockpit conversation on a CIA-operated surveillance jet, USA TODAY has pieced together new details on the last moments of the mis-sionaries' flight and their activities in Peru. It likely will take officials months to determine why the Peruvian fighter was given approval to spray the missionaries' Cessna with bullets, despite doubts voiced by U.S. representatives in the nearby surveillance aircraft. That jet was part of a multibillion-dollar anti-drug program designed to stop the flow of cocaine into the USA. The U.S. government has suspended the program, and Congress has indicated it will launch a broad review of U.S. drug-interdiction efforts in South America. Meanwhile, U.S. and Peruvian officials are blaming each other for the shootdown. For now, what is clear are the piercing images of tragedy for a family whose "call to God" made them Baptist missionaries in what essentially is a war zone -- and the faith they say is allowing them to press on. Cheerios over the Amazon The morning of the flight, the missionaries had been in Letitia, Colombia. Storm clouds were approaching, and they were eager to return to their houseboat in Iquitos, Peru. It had been a successful trip. The Bowerses had taken Charity, whom they had adopted in December, to Letitia to obtain a Peruvian residency visa. (As foreigners, they were required to get the visa at a consulate outside the country.) But they had much work to do back home. Living and traveling on a houseboat, they ministered regularly in 56 villages along a 200-mile stretch of the Amazon. At each stop, they preached the Gospel at thatched-roof churches, handed out aspirin, antibiotic creams and anti-lice treatments to villagers, and even played a game of volleyball or two with some of the other 40 missionaries in the country. It was the life that Jim and Roni Bowers had always wanted. Since age 13, Roni dreamed of "serving the Lord in the mission field," she wrote on the Web site for her missionary group, the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism of New Cumberland, Pa. The same went for Jim Bowers, who had followed his parents, Terry and Wilma, into mission work along the Amazon. In 1993, the association had posted Jim and Roni Bowers to Iquitos, a thriving port city of 300,000. At the time, they told a friend that "God has prepared us for anything." On April 20, the floatplane carrying the Bowerses and their children took off at 9:38 a.m. local time after being delayed by poor weather. Donaldson, himself the son of missionaries, took the plane to an altitude of about 4,000 feet and settled back for the two-hour flight. Bowers kept Charity occupied by feeding her Cheerios and pointing out cloud formations. Unknown to them, a drug surveillance jet, owned by the CIA and operated by one of its contract crews, had spotted their plane. Since 1994, the CIA has flown drug surveillance missions throughout Peru and Colombia in an effort to stem the flow of cocaine. U.S. officials credit those flights for a nearly two-thirds drop in coca production in Peru since 1995. To mask the CIA's involvement in the surveillance effort, the U.S. crew was working for a front company called Aviation Development Corp., a 45-employee business based at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala., U.S. officials said. The three U.S. crewmembers were accompanied on board by a Peruvian military liaison officer. 'Don't shoot! Don't shoot!' After spotting the plane, the CIA crew recommended to the liaison officer that the Peruvian air force dispatch a jet to intercept it. Minutes later, Bowers, with Charity on his lap, saw the Peruvian A-37 fighter jet approaching from the right side of the plane. He told Cory, who was sitting directly behind him, to look at the jet because it was different from the small planes he was used to seeing. Bowers was feeling uneasy, his aunt, Dot Herman of Whitehall, Mich., recalled later. Missionaries in the region are well aware that since 1994, the Peruvian air force had attacked more than 30 suspected drug planes in the air, and that some of its pilots had reputations for being "hot dogs." Donaldson notified the control tower at Iquitos airport of the jet's location and continued flying straight at a level altitude. About 15 minutes later, the U.S. crewmembers aboard the nearby surveillance jet recommended implementing "Phase 1" and "Phase 2" of their standard intercept procedures: attempt to identify the suspect plane and undertake warning steps. The crew, realizing that the missionary plane was not trying to escape from the jet, as a drug plane would do, told the Peruvian officer that they would not recommend doing anything beyond those two phases. "Are you sure this is a bad guy?" a CIA crewmember asked the Peruvian officer as they followed the floatplane, according to a tape of the cockpit conversation. "No," the Peruvian officer responded. But, for reasons unclear to U.S. officials, he radioed the military base in Pucallpa for permission to fire on the small plane. "But he's not taking any evasive action," a CIA crewmember said. "To ID the tail number is very important." The Peruvian jet, sent up to intercept the civilian plane, reported the tail number; the Peruvian officer relayed it to the base. Without waiting for a response, the officer asked for permission to go to "Phase 3" -- a shootdown. "Phase 3 authorized," the Peruvian military base responded. "Jeez!" the CIA pilot said. Seconds later, Bowers saw the first puff of smoke coming from the nose of the fighter jet. Bullets began striking their plane. "Kevin!" Bowers yelled into his headset. "We're being shot at!" As bullets continued to pelt the Cessna, Jim Bowers passed Charity back to her mother -- a move that would cost the child her life. Donaldson pushed the control stick down, plunging the plane toward the Amazon. But his right leg was so badly injured that he couldn't operate the rudder, which controls the plane's movements to the right and left. Bowers searched the cockpit for a fire extinguisher. As the plane descended, the jet continued to spray it with bullets. The CIA pilot, upon hearing Donaldson's screams for help, yelled, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" The Peruvian officer told the air force jet, "No mas" -- no more. By then, about 50 bullets had struck the plane. 'Mommy has just left her body' The Cessna's left wing struck the water first. The plane's large pontoons rocked it back into position. It skidded about 50 feet, then burst into flames. Accounts provided by the victims' family members and associates indicate that Donaldson opened the door and got out. The river around him, covered with spilled gasoline, was on fire. He tried to grab a life vest, but it had been punctured by a bullet. He stepped onto a pontoon, which was filling with water, then jumped into the river to escape the burning wreckage. Unable to use his wounded legs, he dog-paddled to the other side of the plane. Jim Bowers lifted Cory out of the plane and onto a pontoon. Take off your shoes, he told his son. Cory could get only one shoe off. "Mommy has just left her body, son," Bowers told Cory. "She and Charity are in heaven. Don't worry. You'll see them again. Now, Cory, I need you to swim. We're going to swim." He put Cory on Donaldson's back, and the two began dog-paddling away from the wreckage. As Cory turned back to watch, Bowers dragged the bodies of his wife and daughter out of the plane. He placed them into the river, jumped in and held onto their floating bodies as he treaded water backward to escape the flaming wreckage. "Be ready to duck if it explodes!" yelled Donaldson, who was afraid his bleeding leg would attract flesh-eating piranhas, which are common in the Amazon. They calculated the distance to shore: too far to swim. Suddenly, the left pontoon, now filled with water, caused the plane to lean to one side and flip over. Seconds later, the flames died out. Exhausted, Donaldson, with Cory on his back, paddled back to the wreckage. They held on. Bowers followed, dragging the bodies of his wife and daughter. "Help us, Lord," Donaldson cried as the three survivors held onto the wreckage. "Help us, please." About 30 minutes later, a group of Peruvians who had seen the crash arrived in motorized canoes. They took the victims back to the beach near the village of Huanta. There, Bowers put a tourniquet on Donaldson's leg. As the CIA surveillance jet circled overhead, a Peruvian air force jet flew low over the beach to survey the crash site. Frightened by the jet, Cory began to cry. Later that day, the bodies of Roni and Charity Bowers arrived at a morgue in Iquitos. Bowers was taken to a hotel for questioning by police. Two days later, he and Cory, still shaken, returned to be with family members in North Carolina. 'Could it be God had a plan?' On Friday, nearly 1,300 worshipers gathered at Calvary Church in Fruitport, Mich., for the funerals of Roni and Charity Bowers. The Bowers family worshiped there before going to Peru. One white and bronze casket, containing the bodies of both victims, was on a stand in front of the stage, covered with a spray of roses and baby's breath. One of the many flower arrangements near the casket contained four dozen roses and a card that read, "From the government and people of Peru." Manuel Boza, Peru's consul general in Chicago, was moved to make an impromptu speech. "There are moments when really it's very difficult to find the words that could appropriately and adequately express our sentiments or emotions," he said. "Certainly, this is one of those moments." The climax of the service was a 30-minute eulogy by Jim Bowers, who spoke in quiet, nearly inaudible tones. "Why thank God?" he asked. "Could it be that God had a plan for Roni and Charity? I didn't believe it at all right after. But two or three days later, I began to see it was possible." He conceded that their deaths were "absolutely senseless." But then he recalled what he said were small miracles: None of the bullets hit him or Cory. A bullet hole in the Cessna's windshield helped create a draft that cleared smoke from the cabin. And "neither Cory nor I were afraid. We were able to think clearly and act quickly." He said that Roni, who was buried Sunday with her daughter near her parents' home in Pensacola, Fla., would have forgiven the Peruvian pilot who killed her. "Those people who did this were used by God for his purposes," Bowers said. He compared them to the Romans who crucified Jesus. "I'm hoping it will result in an increase in missionaries. I'm sure it will," Bowers said. "People are challenged now to go do what Roni did." That, apparently, is what Roni would have wanted. "When we, as believers, get to heaven, we won't have to ask, 'Why?' " she wrote on the Web site. "It will be worth it all. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." - --- MAP posted-by: Andrew