While most understand the dangers of remote missionary aviation, recent government reports have brought grim reminders of the factors that cannot be controlled.

In April of 2001, American missionaries Jim and Veronica Bowers, along with their young adopted children Cory and Charity, were flown from Brazil to Peru by pilot Kevin Donaldson in a small float plane.  They were sponsored by the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, and had to leave and re-enter the country in order to obtain a permanent visa for Charity, who was just a few months old.  The family had been missionaries to the Amazon since 1993, following a stint in the US Army in Europe.

In a unique program, the CIA was working with the Peruvian government to intercept, and potentially shoot down, aircraft suspected of participating in drug smuggling operations.  The Bowers’ plane was mistakenly suspected of being such an aircraft.  Though the CIA operators in the video express doubts, a Peruvian A-37 ultimately opened fire on the aircraft, killing Veronica and daughter Charity, and severely wounding the pilot, who managed to land the plane on a river even as it caught fire and ultimately flipped over.

In 2002, the US government apologized and paid $8 million to the survivors.  The Peruvian pilots reportedly spent 10 months in prison, though they were not charged with a crime.

For his part, Jim Bowers expressed an amazing peace with the incident, saying

he never had to ask why.  “The bottom line is God knew what he was doing,” Bowers said. “He has been in control of this whole situation.”

Seven years later, Bowers was reported to have remarried and begun missionary work in Africa.

There are a variety of organizations that conduct missionary aviation (links).  There are inherent dangers in the mission, though the Bowers experienced something few could have ever foreseen.