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Peru air force confused
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Shooting US plane down, killing a missionary and her child
A US surveillance plane "provided location data" to a Peruvian Air Force aircraft that opened fire on a small plane over the Amazon region on Friday, killing a US missionary and her child, a State Department official acknowledged late on Saturday.
"An unarmed US Government tracking aircraft was in the area and provided location data for the subsequent intercept mission that was conducted by the Peruvian air force," said the official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.
The Peruvian defence ministry expressed "deep regret" for opening fire on the plane near the town of Iquitos, saying the air force pilot had mistaken the Christian missionaries' aircraft for a plane load of narcotics traffickers.
Peruvian officials have said the plane did not file a flight plan and was not responding to attempts to contact it by radio.
But that version of events was sharply disputed by the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, on whose behalf the slain missionary, Veronica Bowers, 36, worked in Peru.(SD-Agencies)
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