Veronica and Charity Bowers, a young Christian missionary and her daughter, are killed when the Peruvian Air Force shoots down a small passenger plane in 2001. The plane had been mistaken for a drug smuggling plane and was shot down as part of a joint anti-drug agreement between the CIA and the Colombian and Peruvian governments.

President Donald Trump has made the Bowers’s deaths newly and urgently relevant since he began ordering the U.S. military to strike down alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean in September 2025. By early November, the U.S. had launched a total of 17 strikes, killing at least 70 people, and those figures seem to grow almost by the day. The attacks are illegal under both U.S. and international law. The administration also provided no documentation of the alleged drug trafficking.

The attack on the Bowers family pierced the veil that obscures drug war foreign policy because of their nationality, skin color, and relatability. More than 20 years ago, House Oversight Committee hearing members Jan Schakowsky and Elijah Cummings demanded accountability after U.S. drug interdiction forces killed the Bowers. They demanded to know how such a mistake could happen, and how we could prevent the loss of innocent life going forward.

“The kind of action we saw in Peru … amounts to an extrajudicial killing,” said Schakowsky at the time. Cummings added, “The Peruvian shootdown policy would never be permitted as a domestic United States policy precisely because it goes against one of our most sacred, due process principles — namely, that all persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty.”

Now, a new administration openly celebrates summary execution of alleged drug smugglers without a hint of due process, and is now threatening to topple another government to prevent the U.S. from sating its appetite for illicit drugs.

The story of Veronica and Charity Bowers is a stark reminder of how aggressive drug policy is wasteful and futile, how we never seem to learn from past failures, and how the generations-long effort to stop people from getting high also — and necessarily — treats human lives as expendable.

Transcript

Radley Balko: It’s April 20, 2001. In the skies above the Peruvian Amazon, a small floatplane flies over the rainforest, along the river. There are five people aboard. They don’t know it, but their plane is being tracked. A U.S.-based surveillance plane — contracting with the CIA — is closely following.

U.S. Pilot 1: We’re trying to remain covert at this point, but what we do know is it’s a high-wing single-engine floatplane that we picked up just along the border between Peru and Brazil.

Radley Balko: Working with the CIA contractors, a plane from the Peruvian Air Force begins to pursue the mystery plane. It doesn’t appear to have an authorized flight plan, and it isn’t responding to their radio messages. The CIA and Peruvian government suspect that it could be trafficking illicit drugs.

In one telling exchange, the piloting crew discuss whether they should try to identify the plane. But the U.S. officer directs them to stay covert. They’re concerned that the plane might get away.

U.S. Pilot 1: You know, we can go up and attempt the tail number, but the problem with that, if he is dirty and he detects us, he makes a right turn immediately and we can’t chase him.

U.S. Pilot 2: See, I don’t know if this is bandido or if it’s amigo, OK?

Peruvian Air Force pilot: OK.

U.S. Pilot 2 (in Spanish): I don’t know.

Radley Balko: That’s one of the CIA contractors, speaking really poor Spanish, telling the Peruvian Air Force pilot that he’s not sure if the plane in question is a “bandito” or “amigo” — a bandit or a friend.

The plane was then given multiple warnings to land.

Peruvian Air Force pilot (in Spanish): If you do not comply, we will proceed to take you down.

U.S. Pilot 2: This guy doesn’t, this guy doesn’t fit the profile.

U.S. Pilot 1: OK, I understand this is not our call, but this guy is at 4,500 feet. He is not taking any evasive action. I recommend we follow him. I do not recommend “Phase 3” at this time.

Radley Balko: “Phase 3” is code for the most drastic action possible: shooting the plane down from the sky. Under an agreement between the United States and the governments of Peru and other Latin American countries, any planes suspected of running drugs in the region could be plucked from the clouds.

That effectively put U.S. officials from the CIA or Drug Enforcement Agency — along with officials in the Peruvian government — in the role of judge, jury, and executioner.

Peruvian Air Force pilot: It’s three phase, authorized, OK?

U.S. Pilot 2: OK. But you sure it’s bandito? Are you sure?

Peruvian Air Force pilot: Yes.

U.S. Pilot 2: It’s bad? OK.

Peruvian Air Force pilot: OK.

U.S. Pilot 2: If you sure.

Peruvian dispatch: Tucan, Tucan, autorizado fase 3.

U.S. Pilot 1: I think we’re making a mistake, but—

U.S. Pilot 2: I agree with you.

Radley Balko: You can hear the hesitancy in their voices, in their words. And there’s good reason to be unsure. It turns out that in addition to the pilot, the plane is carrying a family of American missionaries: Jim and Veronica Bowers and their two children, 6-year-old Cody and 7-month-old Charity.

The pilot had actually been in touch with a control tower down below in the town of Iquitos but on a different radio frequency. But by the time the CIA and Peruvian Air Force realize their mistake, it’s too late.

U.S. Pilot 2: [unintelligible]

Peruvian Air Force pilot: Sí.

U.S. Pilot 2: He’s going to Santa Clara now.

Peruvian dispatch: Approximente 30 mille de Iquitos.

U.S. Pilot 2: The plane is talking to Iquitos tower.

Bowers’s Pilot (in Spanish): They’re killing us! They’re killing us!

U.S. Pilot 1: Tell them to terminate.

U.S. Pilot 2: Don’t shoot!

U.S. Pilot 1: Tell them to terminate. No más!

Radio chatter: Roger. No más, no más! Tucano, no más!

Radley Balko: As gunfire strikes the floatplane, the pilot screams, “They’re killing us. They’re killing us.” The plane then drops from the sky, leaving a streak of smoke as it plummets on to the Amazon river. The whole thing is caught on video by the CIA observers.

U.S. Pilot 1: There’s a plane right there. Where’s the plane?

U.S. Pilot 3: See them? And there’s the people getting them.

U.S. Pilot 2: Yeah, but I don’t see the plane. …

U.S. Pilot 3: It’s upside down. See, the float’s upside down and the people getting them? Right there.

U.S. Pilot 2: Yeah. Yeah. OK.

U.S. Pilot 3: There’s a bunch of boats down there.

U.S. Pilot 1: Yeah, I only see one. Oh, over here by the—

U.S. Pilot 2: You got a good, good film of that?

U.S. Pilot 1: Uh-huh.

U.S. Pilot 2: OK. Let’s go.

Radley Balko: Miraculously, Jim Bowers and his son Cody survive the crash, as does the pilot, despite being shot in the leg. But Veronica Bowers and 7-month old Charity are killed by gunfire before the plane goes down. The incident quickly makes international news.

George W. Bush: The incident that took place in Peru is a terrible tragedy. And our hearts go out to the families who have been affected.

Radley Balko: But as is often the case with the drug war’s collateral damage, no one would be held accountable.

Brian Ross (ABC Nightline): In Congress today, the CIA was accused by a top Republican of running a nine-year-long effort to stonewall and mislead Congress, failing to reveal how and why all of the program’s strict rules were ignored by the CIA.

Pete Hoekstra (on ABC): If the rules as outlined had been followed, the Bowers plane would not — would not — have been shot down.

Garnett Luttig (on ABC): I want to know the truth. I want to know why. I wonder why my baby’s gone.

Radley Balko: The CIA had been working with the governments of Peru and Colombia to shoot down planes they suspected of carrying drugs for years. We don’t know how many times it happened or how many of the victims were innocent, because the people in almost all of those planes weren’t American citizens. So there was no media outrage. No congressional hearings. No demands for transparency from powerful people.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky: We have spent billions of taxpayer dollars, employed personnel from numerous agencies around the world, and the drugs continue to flow into the United States. Are the Bowers acceptable collateral damage in this war on drugs?

Ian Vásquez: The drug war creates all sorts of innocent victims. People who may have absolutely nothing to do with the drug war, which of course was the case with the shootdown of the airplane in Peru. That was a mistake, but it was directly related to bad policy that Peru was following with the help of the United States.

Radley Balko: As we were producing this episode, President Donald Trump’s administration made the Bowers’s deaths newly and urgently relevant.

In early September 2025, Trump announced that he’d ordered the military to strike a small boat in the Caribbean that he claimed was being used by drug traffickers. Eleven people, all believed to be Venezuelan, were killed.

The attack was illegal under both U.S. and international law. The administration also provided no documentation of the alleged drug trafficking. The U.S. military then expanded its attacks to include the eastern Pacific Ocean. By early November, the U.S. had launched a total of 17 strikes, killing at least 70 people, and those figures seem to grow almost by the day.

The attack on the Bowers family pierced the veil that obscures drug war foreign policy because of their nationality, their skin color, and their relatability. Even Republicans criticized how the George W. Bush administration reacted.

But we now face a brazen new administration that has carried out multiple extrajudicial executions in international waters — one that even jokes about how some of those they’ve killed may actually be innocent.

Donald Trump: I don’t know about the fishing industry. If you want to go fishing, a lot of people aren’t deciding to even go fishing.

JD Vance: [Crowd laughter] I would stop, too. Hell, I wouldn’t go fishing right now in that area of the world. [laughter]

Radley Balko: It’s also an administration now openly preparing to invade Venezuela under the pretext of fighting a drug war.

The story of Veronica and Charity Bowers is a stark reminder of how aggressive drug policy is wasteful and futile, how we never seem to learn from past failures, and how the generations-long effort to stop people from getting high also — and necessarily — treats human lives as expendable.

From The Intercept, this is Collateral Damage.

I’m Radley Balko. I’m an investigative journalist who has been covering the drug war and the criminal justice system for more than 20 years.

The so-called “war on drugs” began as a metaphor to demonstrate the country’s fervent commitment to defeating drug addiction, but the “war” part quickly became all too literal.

When the drug war ramped up in the 1980s and 1990s, it brought helicopters, tanks, and SWAT teams to U.S. neighborhoods. It brought dehumanizing rhetoric, and the suspension of basic civil liberties protections.

All wars have collateral damage: the people whose deaths are tragic but deemed necessary for the greater cause. But once the country dehumanized people suspected of using and selling drugs, we were more willing to accept some collateral damage.

In the modern war on drugs — which dates back more than 50 years to the Nixon administration — the United States has produced laws and policies ensuring that collateral damage isn’t just tolerated, it’s inevitable.

This is Episode 6, “Airborne Imperialism: The Tragic Deaths of Veronica and Charity Bowers.”

It could be difficult to remember how the world worked, and how it felt, back before the attacks of September 11, 2001. It was easier to fly then. People felt safer. Life was less complicated. Former congressman Pete Hoekstra certainly thought so.

Pete Hoekstra: So it’s 2001, everything in America is great. I got on the [House] Intelligence Committee in January of 2001.

Radley Balko: Hoekstra, a Republican, was serving his fifth term in Congress, representing Michigan’s 2nd District.

Pete Hoekstra: Someone from West Michigan called me and said, “Hey, a couple of your constituents have died in Peru. They were shot down. What can you find out about this?” And so that’s when you go to the Intelligence Committee and say, “All right, will you help me take a look at the circumstances of this tragic event? Two of my constituents are killed. It appears that the CIA may have been involved in this. And I just want to get as much information as I can.”

Radley Balko: During his time in Congress, Hoekstra hadn’t focused much on either the drug war or on Latin America. But now two of his constituents were dead because of an incomprehensible mistake. So he had some catching up to do.

Pete Hoekstra: And so I still remember George Tenet coming — who at that time is the director of the CIA — and comes in to brief the Intelligence Committee. And it was a fascinating hearing. It’s when we actually, in Congress, on the Intelligence Committee, we did things in a bipartisan way. And so Tenet comes in, and he explains to us exactly what happens. And the director says, “There’s a protocol in place. And every step in the protocol was followed.” So basically justifying the shootdown of the Bowers plane.

Radley Balko: But then one of Hokestra’s colleagues spoke up.

Pete Hoekstra:........

© The Intercept