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"Generally, what we're doing is not dangerous," he says. "I would feel very secure flying with any of our aviation personnel because of the training and orientation that they have. They don't push the limit."

But Fulton and others acknowledge that not all dangers can be eliminated from their ministry work. "It's a risk," he says.

Many missionary pilots are graduates of the well-regarded Moody Aviation program, Robinson says. Moody's missionary aviation technology program requires two years of Bible study at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and three years of pilot and mechanic training in Elizabethton. About 25 pilots graduate from the program each year, Robinson says. About 30 to 35 missionary organizations operate aircraft, he says. The largest air fleets belong to MAF, JAARS, Africa Inland Mission, and New Tribes Mission.

Moody graduate, former MAF pilot and Moody flight instructor Joe Hopkins founded Mission Safety International (MSI) in 1983 to help mission agencies with safety. Hopkins estimates that 500 to 600 missionary aircraft log 100,000 flights annually.

Fifteen missionary planes crashed in 2000, resulting in 16 deaths and six serious injuries, he says. "Unfortunately, the missionary rate is probably equivalent to the accident rate for general aviation in the U.S.," Hopkins says. "My goal in MSI is to help make missionary aviation as safe as flying on [commercial] airlines."

In 1998 and 1999, there were only three fatal accidents in 16.9 million U.S. commercial flights, killing 13 people. That was a particularly safe period. In 1996, however, three fatal accidents killed 342 people in half the number of commercial flights.

Hopkins believes the higher missionary accident rate is understandable. "When you look at the conditions, too, there is some justification for that," he says.

Missionary pilots are their own meteorologists, and they fly on no-frills airstrips, doing for themselves what other specialists would do for them in more developed settings—loading, unloading, maintenance, and scheduling. "They have to be a jack of all trades," Hopkins says. "There are a lot of demands on a missionary pilot."

Ministries that operate aircraft have drawn up criteria to help them decide whether to pull out of a country. MAF, Fulton says, is often among the last ministries to leave an area deemed risky. "Our service is to support the mission of the local church," he says. "We have a fairly lengthy security checklist," which varies from country to country.

Much depends on how crucial MAF's presence is in a place, Fulton says. As a rule, "As long as there are missionaries, we'll need to be there."

While ABWE temporarily has curtailed flights in Peru, it is "absolutely not" looking to scale back its work there, says E. C. Haskell, ABWE's director of communications.

The mission has assigned 47 full-time workers to that country. Before the April crash, its two airplanes logged a total of about 180 flights per year.

Says Haskell, "We certainly anticipate we're going to go ahead full steam."

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June 11 2001, Vol. 45, No. 8