According to participants in the program interviewed for the report, performing the takedowns according to the established protocol would have "taken time and might have resulted in the escape of the target aircraft," the report continues. Because the procedure was difficult to follow, so "it was easier to shoot the aircraft down than to force it down."
"The result," the report says, "was that, in many cases, suspect aircraft were shot down within two to three minutes of being sighted by the Peruvian fighter -- without being properly identified, without being given the required warnings to land, and without being given time to respond to such warnings as were given to land."
Those actions were in violation of Presidentially-mandated intercept procedures, according to the report.
"Bottom line, if this program and these people had been held accountable for implementing procedures," Hoekstra said, "the Bowers plane would never have been shot down."
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