Exclusive: Missionary Whose Wife Was Killed

May 23 -- The American missionary whose wife and baby daughter were killed when their plane was shot down over the Amazon says there was no warning before a Peruvian fighter jet opened fire.

Jim Bowers and his wife Veronica, known as Roni, were traveling with their two children, 6-year-old Cory and 7-month-old Charity, when they first spotted the Peruvian jet on April 20. They were on their way to get a visa for Charity, whom they had recently adopted.

"I reached back and told Roni to wake Cory up because he'd want to see it," Bowers told ABCNEWS' Diane Sawyer in his first interview since the tragedy.

Peruvian officials have said their air force mistook the missionary family's plane for drug smugglers, and that the Peruvian plane shot down the small craft only after warnings. But Bowers, 38, told PrimeTime Thursday there were no warning shots.

"This plane had to be a quarter-mile behind us and I don't care how loud the gun is, we're not going to know that he's shooting at us unless they had tracers," he said. He said a Peruvian air force commander he spoke to after the shootdown "told me there were no tracers."

The pilot, Kevin Donaldson, managed to crash-land the plane on the Amazon River. Donaldson, Bowers and Cory survived. Roni and Charity did not.

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‘It Doesn’t Make Any Sense’

Bowers says the Peruvian plane never tipped its wings, the signal for another plane to land.

"It doesn't make any sense whatsoever," said Bowers. "Even if we were drug runners, why shoot us down? Why not guide us into where they could confiscate the evidence and try us?"

PrimeTime has learned that the Peruvian air force radioed to the little propeller plane: "You have been intercepted by the Peruvian air force. Change course and go to the airfield. Should you not obey, we will proceed to shoot you down."

But the warning was broadcast on an emergency frequency, while the missionary plane used an ordinary frequency. Donaldson and the Bowers family never heard a word of the message.