Peru Jet Fires on U.S. Plane; Flier Missing

One U.S. airman was missing and two others injured Friday when a Peruvian military plane fired on a U.S. Air Force transport plane off the coast of Peru.

U.S. Ambassador Anthony Quainton contacted Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori about the incident, which occurred at 5:01 p.m. Fujimori “immediately offered apologies and promised an investigation,” a U.S. source said.

Government sources in Lima and Washington said the American C-130 transport had been participating with the Peruvian air force in anti-drug surveillance operations in the Upper Huallaga Valley, the center of Peru’s coca industry.

The unarmed plane, which apparently was based in Panama, was returning to its home field but strayed from its flight plan, according to a Peruvian air force source.

The American plane was expected to leave Peru by flying north over the jungle, the source said. Instead, it flew west toward Talara, a coastal town near Peru’s border with Ecuador and site of a major Peruvian air base.

A U.S. government source in Lima, who called the C-130’s anti-drug mission “reasonably routine,” said the plane’s crew had given their flight plan to the Peruvian government. A government source in Washington also said the plane’s mission and flight path had been approved by the Peruvian government.

The Peruvian air force, which had tracked the U.S. plane from the Upper Huallaga Valley, sent a jet fighter to intercept it as it neared or passed Talara, the Peruvian source said, noting that the fighter was either a French-made Mirage or a Soviet-built Sukhoi. U.S. government sources in Washington said two fighters were sent to trail the C-130.

A Peruvian fighter fired on the U.S. plane when the C-130 was 50 to 80 miles west of Talara, over the Pacific Ocean, according to the Peruvian source.

The fighter’s machine guns caused unspecified damage to the C-130, a Pentagon official said. Two crew members were injured and a third fell out an open door. The victims’ identities were not released.

The Pentagon official said a plane was dispatched from U.S. Southern Command in Panama to Talara air base, where the C-130 landed after the incident, to provide medical assistance to the injured crewmen.

According to the U.S. government source, the Peruvian jet had made no attempt to send a radio warning to the American pilot. The C-130 was unarmed and, according to the U.S. source, “had no reason to disobey an order from a Peruvian fighter jet.”

The incident followed recent efforts by Peru to improve control over its air space, particularly against drug traffickers’ flights carrying Peruvian coca paste to Colombia. Peru produces about 60% of the world’s coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine.

Immediately following Fujimori’s military-backed move on April 5 to exert greater control over the Pervian government, Peru announced a crackdown on flights in and out of coca-growing areas. On Thursday, the Peruvian air force announced that it had taken control of airports and air space in the Upper Huallaga Valley. Friday’s shooting, however, took place over the ocean, more than 300 miles west of the coca growing region.

U.S. officials had ordered most American personnel, including about 20 Green Berets involved in training anti-narcotics police, out of Peru after Fujimori suspended the constitution earlier this month.