[citation needed] Their mission expanded, too, from locating targets in the illegal drug trade chosen by the American Embassy to keeping a look out for leftist guerrillas, including those of FARC.

By 2002, pilots began to worry about what they perceived to be the lack of power and speed of their planes - the single-engine Cessna Caravan - for a country as big and mountainous as Colombia.

Two pilots, Paul C. Hooper and Douglas C. Cockes, wrote letters in November and December 2002 to Northrop Grumman warning that flying single-engine planes was a recipe for disaster.

[citation needed] The American pilot, Tom Janis, and Colombian military intelligence officer Luis Alcides Cruz were led out by FARC gunmen and shot, execution style.

[citation needed] Three other Americans associated with Northrop Grumman made an attempt to find the hostages by air but were all killed when their plane hit a tree.