Victims of Peru Accident Land Home

April 24, 2001 -- Amid conflicting accounts of the downing of a U.S. missionary plane over Peru, the bodies of an American missionary and her 7-month-old daughter arrived in the United States today.

The bodies of American missionary Veronica "Roni" Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter Charity arrived in Houston from Lima, Peru, after the Cessna 185 they were flying in over the Amazon River was shot down by a Peruvian military plane Friday.

The victims' bodies are to be flown to Michigan later today for funeral services scheduled for later in the week.

The bodies arrived as a U.S. Senate intelligence committee prepares to meet this afternoon to sort out the facts behind the shooting down of the missionary plane by a Peruvian A-37 amid sharply conflicting reports from both sides.

U.S officials have suggested the crew of a CIA-operated surveillance aircraft tracking the missionary plane repeatedly asked Peruvian military officials to slow down the A-37's actions against the missionary aircraft, but the Peruvians cut corners in the established procedures and rushed with their shootdown orders.

While expressing regret for the loss of lives, the Peruvian air force has denied U.S. suggestions that it failed to follow established procedures.

‘The Rudder Was There, But My Foot Was Not’

Questions about whether the two sides followed protocol came as the pilot, Kevin Donaldson, 42, spoke for the first time of the harrowing experience over Peruvian skies.

Speaking from the Reading Hospital and Medical Center in West Reading, Pa., where he was treated for a shattered leg, Donaldson told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America today he was simply glad to be alive.

"It was scary. It was something that will haunt me for a long time," he said. "I'm glad to be alive. But I'm also deeply hurting for the loss of my friend and colleague."

U.S. officials said Bowers was killed by a single bullet that passed through her body and entered the skull of her infant daughter, who was sitting on her lap, killing both instantly.

Her husband Jim Bowers, 38, and son Cory, 6, who were on the flight escaped unharmed and are currently in Raleigh, N.C.

Although he was shot in both legs, Donaldson said he made a rapid descent to the Amazon River, not realizing the extent of his injuries. "When I needed my right rudder, I realized the rudder was there, but my foot was not," he said.

Donaldson and the other two survivors were rescued by a Peruvian in a dugout canoe on the Amazon River.

Conflicting Reports

But even as the Bowers family prepares for funeral services, there were different accounts of what happened.

A U.S. official told ABCNEWS radio transmissions between the CIA plane and the Peruvian fighter jet show the U.S. crew was calm and professional but clearly concerned about the possibility that the plane they were tracking was not on a drug run.

The Washington Post today reported it was the duty of the CIA surveillance plane to spot the registration number on a suspect plane before calling in a Peruvian interceptor and that the registration number was clearly visible on the Cessna.

But U.S. officials told ABCNEWS it was up to the Peruvians to decide to shoot.

Peruvian officials maintain they targeted the plane because it had not filed a flight plan and was suspected of involvement in the drug trade.

But a spokesman for the missionary group involved, the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, told Good Morning America that Donaldson did file a flight plan. A copy of flight plan, put up on the missionary Web site, reveals the plan included a round-trip route from Iquitos, Peru, to Islandia, Peru, on the border with Brazil, and then back to Iquitos.

Speaking on Good Morning America today, Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said a thorough investigation was necessary before making any policy changes. "I think it behooves us to first gather as much information, understand what happened, what the context of the operation was and then we'll be in a position to make some judgments as to future policy."

Since the early 1990s, Peru has been a key South American ally in the United States' war on drug trafficking. Once the world's leading producer of coca leaf, the raw material used to make cocaine, Peru supplied Colombia's Medellin and Cali drug organizations. Much of that cocaine went to the United States, the world's biggest consumer of the drug.

ABCNEWS' Martha Raddatz and Barbara Starr contributed to this report.