PERU: A PERUVIAN FIGHTER JET SHOOTS DOWN A PLANE CARRYING MISSIONARIES, BELIEVING IT WAS A DRUG FLIGHT

Record ID: 376231

  • Title: PERU: A PERUVIAN FIGHTER JET SHOOTS DOWN A PLANE CARRYING MISSIONARIES, BELIEVING IT WAS A DRUG FLIGHT
  • Date: 25th April 2001
  • Summary: HUANTA, PERU (APRIL 25, 2001) (CH.N - NO ACCESS PERU/INTERNET) 1. SLV/SV/CU DOWNED PLANE PARTIALLY SUBMERGED AND UPSIDE DOWN IN RIVER / BULLET HOLES VISIBLE; RESIDENTS SITTING CLOSE BY RIVER, DISCUSSING INCIDENT; WITNESS TO INCIDENT SITTING WITH HIS FAMILY (10 SHOTS) 1.00 2. MCU (Spanish) WILLIAM MANAKIRI, WITNESS TO INCIDENT AND RESIDENT WHO RES
  • Embargoed: 10th May 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: HUANTA, PERU
  • Country: Peru
  • Reuters ID: LVA3ZJAL98LOW4HGLKRGAPOB0A4T
  • Story Text: Residents in the small Iquitos town of Huanta have
    reacted to the incident that left a U.S. missionary woman and
    her baby dead after a Peruvian fighter jet shot down the plane
    they were travelling on over Peru's Amazon jungle.



    Residents living near the airport reacted to the death
    of the missionary woman on Wednesday (April 25) while the
    wreckage of the downed plane remained partially submerged in
    the river.

    On Friday (April 20), a Peruvian fighter jet shot down
    the plane carrying the missionaries, believing it was a drug
    flight. An U.S. anti-drug surveillance plane located the
    missionary plane for the Peruvian Air Force jet, which then
    shot the plane, killing the American woman and her seven-month
    old baby. Her husband, their six-year old son and the pilot
    survived the incident.

    The two-engine U.S. Department of Defense aircraft was
    providing tracking and detection information as part of joint
    U.S.-Peruvian efforts to stem drug trafficking.

    William Manakiri who witnessed the incident described the
    activity of the three planes.

    "There was one that was flying next to the plane that
    crashed and the other was on top of it and flying slow," he
    said.

    Manakiri said he had rushed over to rescue the women and
    her baby.

    "I thought the woman had drowned but when I picked her
    up, there was blood along her back and she was already dead,"
    he added.

    The Peruvian Air Force said in a communiqué over the
    weekend it opened fire on the missionaries' "floatplane" after
    it failed to heed warnings to land, adding it had no published
    flight plan.

    The group for which the Bowers served as missionaries, the
    Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, a
    Pennsylvania-based group, released a copy of the plane's
    flight plan on their Web site on Monday as proof that the
    pilot had followed usual procedures and that his aircraft
    should not have been mistaken for a drug plane.


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