The World : Crash Kills 6 Americans

A twin-engine plane carrying a U.S. drug agent and Peruvian police officers crashed in the Andes, killing all nine people aboard, six of them Americans, U.S. and Peruvian officials said. U.S. Embassy spokesman Charles Loveridge said the Cessna, owned by the State Department and on a routine reconnaissance flight, went down Saturday, soon after leaving the jungle town of Tingo Maria. He said the wreckage was spotted Sunday near Huanuco, northeast of Lima, and that a U.S. team was en route to the site. He said that of the six Americans, one was a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, one worked for the State Department and four were contract pilots. One of the Peruvians aboard was the chief of the U.S.-funded coca eradication program.