— A U.S. aircraft gave Peru's military the location of a plane carrying American missionaries, mistakenly suspecting the plane was part of a drug running operation. Peru's air force shot down the plane, killing two American missionaries.

The U.S. aircraft flying with the Peruvian interceptor is owned by the Pentagon, but flown by a crew hired by and under contract to the Central Intelligence Agency, ABCNEWS has learned.

The highly placed government official also told ABCNEWS that Intelligence officials have reviewed video and audio tapes from the Peruvian military plane that rides along with the U.S. aircraft in drug interception runs. The calls to the plane carrying American missionaries were not returned, according to the source.

President Bush said the role of the U.S. in drug interceptions is to identify planes that do not have flight plans. Airport officials said the plane did not have a flight plan when it set out Friday morning, but one was established when the pilot made radio contact with Iquitos' airport control tower.

U.S. surveillance flights have since been halted pending the investigation of the downing of the plane. . . .

Missionary Veronica "Roni" Bowers, 37, and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, of Muskegon, Mi., were killed. Pilot Kevin Donaldson was wounded in the legs by shots.

"There was a US government tracking aircraft in the area in support of the Peruvian intercept mission," read an official statement from an embassy official in Lima. "As part of an agreement between the US and Peru, U.S. radar and aircraft provide tracking information to the Peruvian Air Force on planes suspected of smuggling illegal drugs in the region. U.S. government tracking aircraft used for this program are unarmed and do not participate in any way in shooting down suspect planes."

The Embassy official's statement came after one of the three survivors reported that an American aircraft was flying nearby when the Peruvian jet shot down the missionaries' plane Friday morning. . . .

Donaldson, a second-generation missionary, was shot in the leg during the flight and lost control of the flaming plane before managing to guide it into Amazon River, where the missionaries floated on the craft's pontoons for a half-hour before being rescued by local villagers.

The missionaries' plane was en route from the Brazil-Peru border to the city of Iquitos, about 625 miles northeast of Lima, when it was attacked, said the Rev. E.C. Haskell, spokesman for the New Cumberland, Pa.,-based group, the Association of Baptists for World Evangelists.

[This message has been edited by Linda Sutton (edited April 22, 2001).]