The Peruvian Armed Forces are the military services of Peru, comprising independent Army, Navy and Air Force components. Their primary mission is to safeguard the country's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity against any threat. As a secondary mission they participate in economic and social development as well as in civil defense tasks.
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (KE007/KAL007) was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska. On September 1, 1983, the flight was shot down by a Soviet Sukhoi Su-15 interceptor aircraft. The Boeing 747 airliner was en route from Anchorage to Seoul, but owing to a navigational mistake made by the crew, the airliner drifted from its planned route and flew through Soviet prohibited airspace over underground silos with intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Soviet Air Forces treated the unidentified aircraft as an intruding U.S. spy plane, and destroyed it with air-to-air missiles, after firing warning shots. The Korean airliner eventually crashed into the sea near Moneron Island west of Sakhalin in the Sea of Japan, killing all 269 passengers and crew aboard, including Larry McDonald, a United States representative. The Soviet Union found the wreckage under the sea two weeks later on September 15 and found the flight recorders in October, but this information was kept secret by the Soviet authorities until 1992, after the country's dissolution.
The Cessna A-37 Dragonfly, or Super Tweet, is a light attack aircraft designed and produced by the American aircraft manufacturer Cessna.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 2001.
The Peruvian Air Force is the branch of the Peruvian Armed Forces tasked with defending the nation and its interests through the use of air power. Additional missions include assistance in safeguarding internal security, conducting disaster relief operations and participating in international peacekeeping operations.
Brothers to the Rescue is a Miami-based activist nonprofit organization headed by José Basulto. Formed by Cuban exiles, the group is widely known for its opposition to the Cuban government and its former leader Fidel Castro. The group describes itself as a humanitarian organization aiming to assist and rescue raft refugees emigrating from Cuba and to "support the efforts of the Cuban people to free themselves from dictatorship through the use of active non-violence". Brothers to the Rescue, Inc., was founded in May 1991 "after several pilots were touched by the death of" fifteen-year-old Gregorio Perez Ricardo, who "fleeing Castro's Cuba on a raft, perished of severe dehydration in the hands of U.S. Coast Guard officers who were attempting to save his life."
Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) is an Evangelical Christian organization that provides aviation, communications, and learning technology services to more than 1,000 Christian and humanitarian agencies, as well as thousands of isolated missionaries and indigenous villagers in the world's most remote areas. There are three major operational centers – Nampa, Idaho; Ashford, England; and Cairns, Australia. These centres provide operational support to programs in the Americas, Africa and Asia Pacific regions. In 2010, MAF served in more than 55 countries, flying 201,710 passengers with a fleet of some 130 aircraft.
Rigoberto Alpizar was a Costa Rican-born United States citizen who was fatally shot at Miami International Airport by two United States Federal Air Marshals.
The Colombian Air Force is the aerospace force of the Republic of Colombia. The Colombian Air Force is one of the three institutions of the Military Forces of Colombia charged, according to the 1991 Constitution, with working to exercise and maintain control of Colombia's air and to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity and constitutional order. It is one of the largest air forces in the Americas and has increased its activity due to important roles in the fight against narco-terrorism. Its main force includes 21 IAI Kfirs as defense fighters and 12 Cessna A-37 Dragonfly plus 24 Embraer 314 Super Tucano for counterinsurgency.
James Bernard McGovern Jr. was a World War II fighter pilot and later an aviator with the Central Intelligence Agency. He and co-pilot Wallace Buford were the only Americans to die in combat in the First Indochina War. At the time, they were officially employees of Civil Air Transport.
The 1994 Black Hawk shootdown incident, sometimes referred to as the Black Hawk Incident, was a friendly fire incident over northern Iraq that occurred on 14 April 1994 during Operation Provide Comfort (OPC). The pilots of two United States Air Force (USAF) F-15 fighter aircraft, operating under the control of a USAF airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft, misidentified two United States Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters as Iraqi Mil Mi-24 "Hind" helicopters. The F-15 pilots fired on and destroyed both helicopters, killing all 26 military and civilians aboard, including personnel from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Turkey, and the Kurdish community.
The following activities were or are supposed to have been carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Peru.
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 alternative theories concerns the various theories put forward regarding the shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007. The aircraft was en route from New York City via Anchorage to Seoul on September 1, 1983, when it strayed into prohibited Soviet airspace and was shot down by Soviet fighter jets.
The illegal drug trade in Peru includes the growing of coca and the shipment of cocaine to the United States. In an example of the balloon effect, dramatic falls in coca cultivation in the late 1990s saw cultivation move to Colombia.
The Air Bridge Denial (ABD) Program is an anti-narcotics program operated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Colombia and Peru. Starting in the 1990s, it targets traffickers transporting 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. It was restarted in Colombia in August 2003 after additional safeguards were established.
On July 31, 1981, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter of the Panamanian Air Force crashed in Marta Hill, in the community of Coclesito, in adverse weather conditions while on its final approach to Coclesito airport. All seven people on board, including General Omar Torrijos Herrera, who led the country's military dictatorship between 1968 and 1981, were killed.
On 27 March 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, a Yugoslav Army unit shot down an F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft of the United States Air Force by firing a S-125 Neva/Pechora surface-to-air missile. It was the first ever shootdown of a stealth technology airplane. The pilot ejected safely and was rescued by U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen conducting search and rescue.
On 24 February 1996 a Cuban Air Force Mikoyan MiG-29UB shot down two unarmed Cessna 337 Skymaster aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue, an organization opposed to the Cuban government. The Organisation of American States (OAS) reported that no warning was given; Cuban government sources said "These people knew what they were doing. They were warned", and that the aircraft had entered Cuban airspace. All the occupants of the aircraft were killed: Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre, Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales. A third Cessna involved escaped. Previous similar flights had released propaganda leaflets over Cuba.
