U.S.-Peru plane investigation 'going well'

Veronica Bowers and infant daughter, Charity, were killed. Jim Bowers and son, Cory, escaped injury

From Elise Labott
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A U.S. team in Peru conducting a joint investigation on the shoot-down of a missionary plane by the Peruvian air force should be finished with its work by the end of the week, a senior State Department official told CNN on Thursday.

The team on Wednesday traveled to Iquitos -- near where the plane crash-landed on the Amazon River after being shot down last month -- to meet with Peruvian air force officers and others involved in the incident, the official said.

The seven-member team, led by Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Rand Beers, arrived in Lima on Sunday and spent the first few days talking with U.S. embassy officials and holding preliminary meetings with senior Peruvian officials heading the investigation, the official said.

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The official added that the investigation was "going well," and the two sides were not trying to point fingers and place blame.

"It is not acrimonious at all," the official said. "This really is a joint effort to come to the same conclusion about what went wrong and fix any problems."

Veronica Bowers, a Baptist missionary from the United States, and her 7-month-old daughter were killed when a Peruvian jet opened fire on the single-engine Cessna on which they were riding when the Peruvian pilot mistook it for a drug-smuggling flight.

The investigation is examining the events leading up to and following the shooting, which unfolded after a U.S. drug surveillance plane -- a Defense Department-owned Cessna with CIA contract personnel on board -- spotted the private plane over the jungles of Peru and then contacted Peruvian authorities.

The unanswered questions range from whether the pilot's flight plan was filed with the appropriate parties before the flight, and whether the Peruvians attempted to communicate with the pilot, either by radio or by tipping the wings of the Peruvian plane, before firing.

The pilot of the plane, who survived the incident, has said he filed a flight plan and that he radioed controllers not to shoot at his plane.

The State Department official said the investigation is multi-faceted and would start at a basic level of "who did what."

"It is pretty clear the Peruvians were the ones making the final decision to shoot down the plane," the official said. "But then, we start to look at whether the procedures were followed. And again, that is fairly clear ... All the procedures were not followed or were followed inadequately."

The official said the investigation would examine "whether there is something wrong with the procedures," and what needs to be done to avoid any future accidents. He added the fact the U.S. crew did not speak fluent Spanish was an "issue that needs to be addressed."

"We need to agree on some new terms," the official said. "Clearly there are going to be new ground rules which need to be implemented ... and obviously it is going to be a different program in some ways."

The U.S. team will finish in Peru over the weekend and should be back in the United States by "Monday at the latest," the official said. Then, a Peruvian investigation team is expected to travel to the United States to talk with those involved in the incident, including the pilot of the downed plane and the CIA-contracted crew members aboard the U.S. surveillance aircraft.

After the investigation is completed, the two sides will go about writing a report on their findings within the next several weeks.

The United States is anxious to complete the investigation, a senior U.S. official said, not only to get to the bottom of the incident, but also to set in place new procedures so that U.S. interdiction flights can resume.

U.S. involvement in the intercept programs in Peru and Colombia has been halted as a result of the accident.

One senior U.S. official pointed out that a short suspension of the flights is not a crisis in drug-flow prevention, because it takes a while for drug traffickers to arrange flights. But he said, "Everyone agrees suspending it indefinitely will certainly encourage the narcotrafficker to go ahead with his business."

"We want the investigation to find what went wrong," the official said. "And fix the problems so that we can institute some program on some type of basis."

Colombian officials appear reluctant to say the suspension of U.S. assistance would encourage increased drug trafficking. They insist counter-narcotics efforts, including intercept flights, continue as normal.

"Of course, the help the U.S. can provide is important to us," one Colombian official said. "It is always better to have technical support, but we are not stopping ... We are not dependent on the U.S."

This official said the Colombian air force is increasing its resources as a result, and added that U.S. air support is not even the main element of Colombia's interdiction programs.

Peru regrets missionary's death, but says too soon to place blame
April 24, 2001
U.S. to send team to probe missionary plane shooting
April 23, 2001
Bush calls missionary plane incident 'terrible tragedy'
April 22, 2001
Plane shoot down: Drug intercept flights suspended in Peru
April 21, 2001
Peru air force downs U.S. missionary plane
April 21, 2001
Two Americans killed when private plane shot down in Peru
April 20, 2001

Peruvian Embassy in Washington, DC
American Embassy in Lima, Peru

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