Plane shot down after 'errors in procedure'

Procedural errors, language problems and an overloaded communications system all contributed to the mistaken shooting down of an American missionary plane over Peru, a joint US-Peruvian inquiry concluded in a report released yesterday.

Procedural errors, language problems and an overloaded communications system all contributed to the mistaken shooting down of an American missionary plane over Peru, a joint US-Peruvian inquiry concluded in a report released yesterday.

The report did not directly assign blame, but said both nations had not been following the full set of procedures developed by the two governments in 1994 to avoid such accidents. The missionaries' Cessna was shot down by a Peruvian jet on 20 April after a CIA-operated surveillance flight identified it as a possible drug flight. An American missionary and her young daughter were killed. The US has suspended drug surveillance flights since the incident. ( AP)