Group Based Here Helped Find Plane

Wreckage of the Peruvian airliner that crashed in the jungles of eastern Peru on Christmas Eve was located from a light plane owned and operated by an interreligious group with headquarters in St. Louis.

Joseph G. Fabick, vice president of John Fabick Tractor Co. and president of United Missionary Air Training and Transport (UMATT), said that the wreckage was located from one of two Cessna 182 planes based in Peru buy the organization. UMATT is known also as Wings of Mercy and uses light planes for relief purposes in several remote areas of the world.

The airliner had 92 persons aboard when it crashed. Included were the copilot, who was given his multi-engine and instrument flight training in St. Louis under UMATT sponsorship, and two passengers who had been active in the Wings of Mercy program in Peru. The two planes based in Peru fly about 200 hours a month, primarily on medical missions and carrying food and other emergency supplies.