Starting in the 1990s the Central Intelligence Agency has operated an anti-narcotics program in Colombia and Peru called Air Bridge Denial (ABD). The ABD program targeted drug traffickers that transport illicit drugs through the air by forcing down suspicious aircraft, using lethal force if necessary. The program was suspended in April 2001 when a legitimate civilian aircraft was shot down in Peru and two U.S. citizens were killed. The program was restarted in Colombia in August 2003 after additional safeguards were established.
As of 2005, the United States had provided $68 million dollars for the program, which had so-far only produced only one drug seizure. [1] In 2010 the Government Accountability Office produced a report stating that the program faced challenges and that the effectiveness of the program at stopping narcotics trafficking was difficult to assess. It noted, however, that the program often advanced broad foreign policy objectives of the United States.[2]
On April 20, 2001[3] a plane carrying a family of four missionaries and a pilot was shot down after it was wrongly identified by the Peruvian Air Force as carrying drugs. Of the five people on the plane, Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter were killed in the incident, while her husband, Jim and their son Cory as well as the pilot Kevin Donaldson, managed to survive after crash-landing the plane on the Amazon River despite serious leg wounds.[4]
On November 1, 2010 the Central Intelligence Agency declassified a 2008 CIA inspector general report that indicated retired and current officers were given administrative punishments for their role in the incident. While the report laid the blame for the shoot down at the feet of the Peruvian military, investigators concluded "there were problems with the program" and mistakes were made, requiring disciplinary action.[4]