posted 10-01-2001 11:55 PM            

MIAMI (AP) - A two-seat State Department plane bound for a Florida air force base from islands near the Bahamas was missing late Monday, officials said.
The last contact with the plane was at 10:20 a.m. Monday, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said. It departed from Turks and Caicos Islands southeast of the Bahamas and was destined for Patrick Air Force Base in Melbourne on Florida's east coast.

Coast Guard and Air Force planes were searching an area 50 miles southeast of Freeport, Bahamas late Monday, said Petty Officer Robert Suddarth, Coast Guard spokesman. Pilots that returned from searching this afternoon reported poor weather and visibility, he said.

Bergen said the aircraft is an Ayers AY-65, which is an agricultural or "crop-dusting type of aircraft," and owned by the State Department.

Only the pilot, a 20-year veteran of the State Department, was aboard the plane, Suddarth said. Suddarth and Bergen did not release the name of the pilot.

posted 10-02-2001 09:28 AM            

Drug-eradication plane missing in Bahamas
BY KENY FEIJOO
mfeijoo@herald.com

A small plane that was part of a Colombian drug-eradication program disappeared Monday in the Bahamas on its way to Patrick Air Force Base in Cocoa Beach, State Department and Coast Guard officials said.

The two-seater plane left the Turks and Caicos Islands early Monday morning, said Susan Pittman, a State Department spokeswoman in Washington, D.C.

The Federal Aviation Administration told the pilot to try to land in Freeport, but that was the last contact with the aircraft, said Verla Davis, a spokeswoman at Patrick, home of the State Department Air Wing. She said she did not know why the pilot was urged to land.

The Coast Guard said the only person aboard was a pilot with 20 years of experience with the State Department, which contracts with Virginia-based DynCorp to do the spray program. The pilot's identity was not released.

Pittman said the plane was on its way back from Colombia when it stopped in the Turks on Sunday night. It took off Monday morning.

At about 10:20 a.m., the Miami Airport Control Tower lost communication with the pilot.

Early today, the Coast Guard still had one plane searching for the aircraft.

Petty Officer Robert Suddarth said the pilot might have been looking for a spot to land because of bad weather conditions.

Pittman said she also was briefed that there might have been problems with the weather.

In 1996, the Clinton administration quietly contracted with U.S. civilian pilots to fly drug-crop eradication missions over Colombian territory that is protected by well-armed guerrillas working in concert with narcotics traffickers.

Eradication pilots have one of the most perilous jobs in the drug war, flying at treetop level over coca and poppy fields protected by armed rebels and growers.

Herald staff writers Elaine de Valle, Phil Long and Jacqueline Charles contributed to this story.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What Cuba has to say about State Dept. Crop-dusters:http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/countries/Cuba/biowar.htm