Shultz Denies U.S. Link to Plane Downed in Nicaragua : Three Dead, Survivor Is From Wis.

Disputing Nicaraguan allegations, Secretary of State George P. Shultz today denied that an American-manned cargo plane shot down over Nicaragua was on a mission for the CIA.

Shultz also said that Eugene Hasenfus, the survivor of the crash, and his three fellow crew members, who were reportedly killed, had no connection with the U.S. government.

In Managua, however, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Bendana said the survivor described himself as a military adviser assigned to El Salvador.

“You have U.S. citizens now dying in Mr. Reagan’s war against Nicaragua,” Bendana charged. The Sandinista newspaper Barricada said the plane is “proof of the open participation of the United States in the war of aggression against Nicaragua.”

Bendana later claimed on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the plane was on “a CIA operation with CIA operatives.”

But Shultz, in a transatlantic interview with European reporters, sponsored by the U.S. Information Agency, said the plane had been “hired by private people” who “had no connection with the U.S. government at all.”

‘CIA Is Not Involved’

Kathy Pherson, a spokeswoman for the CIA, said: “The guy doesn’t work for us, and CIA is not involved. . . . There are congressional restrictions on assistance to the contras, and we do not break those restrictions.”

A U.S. Embassy spokesman in El Salvador said the plane’s surviving crew member “is not an adviser, not an employee of the embassy and has no relation with us.”

The Sandinista government said it shot down the plane Sunday in the jungle about 35 miles north of Costa Rica and 91 miles southeast of Managua. It said that the plane was loaded with rifles and ammunition, that one American was captured and that three Americans died.

Nicaraguan government spokesman Manuel Espinoza said poor visibility prevented helicopters from reaching the crash site today. He said the survivor will be brought to Managua as soon as possible.

Nicaragua identified the survivor as Eugene Hafenfuf, 35, but said it was not sure how the name is spelled. In Marinette, Wis., a woman answering the phone at the home of Eugene Hasenfus, 45, said she is the wife of the crewman who survived the crash.

She said her name is Sally Hasenfus and added: “I don’t know where he is and what he’s doing. I only know what I see on the TV, too, and I really don’t know any more.”

‘Looking for Adventure’

A brother, William Hasenfus, said Eugene Hasenfus has worked for an air freight company out of Miami for several months. The brother said that Eugene is an ex-Marine and that they once ran a parachuting school together.

William Hasenfus said his brother is about 6 feet tall with red hair and “a good old American build on him.” He said that Eugene is “the type of guy who goes looking for adventure” and that he was not surprised to hear of his plight.

“It’s a little ironic,” he said. “That was my parachute on his back. He just happened to ask for it when he visited a few weeks ago, and that’s what saved him.”

Asked whether the downed plane could have belonged to a private group aiding the contras, Bendana, the Nicaraguan foreign minister, replied, “The CIA has a long track record of purchasing aircraft and setting up dummy companies to put these into the hands of the contras.”

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed that a Eugene Hasenfus of Marinette, Wis., born Jan. 22, 1941, entered the Marine Corps in May, 1960, and received an honorable discharge after five years of active duty, most of it at Camp Pendleton, Calif.