Marc David Gonsalves (born 1972) is an American

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military tec ...

employee who was abducted by the

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army ( es, link=no, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de ColombiaEjército del Pueblo, FARC–EP or FARC) is a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian confl ...

(FARC) and was held hostage from February 13, 2003, to July 2, 2008. He was rescued in Operation Jaque, along with the two other American contractors, Ingrid Betancourt, and eleven members of the Colombian security forces. On March 12, 2009, Gonsalves, Keith Stansell and Thomas Howes were each awarded the

Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom The Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom is a decoration established to acknowledge civilian employees of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) who are killed or wounded in the line of duty. Description The medal was cr ...

Biography

Early life and education

Marc Gonsalves is the son of George Gonsalves and Jo Rosano. He was raised in

Bristol, Connecticut Bristol is a suburban city located in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, southwest-west of Hartford. The city is also 120 miles southwest from Boston, and approximately 100 miles northeast of New York City. As of the 2020 census, the ...

and has a brother.

Career

Gonsalves served as an imagery analyst in the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army S ...

for eight years prior to becoming a contractor employed by California Microwave Systems, a subsidiary of

Marriage and children

Gonsalves and his ex-wife have three children. On July 17, 2008, Marc Gonsalves filed for divorce.

Mission in Colombia

Marc Gonsalves was part of a team of a dozen or so pilots and technicians overseen by the

U.S. Southern Command The United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), located in Doral, Florida in Greater Miami, is one of the eleven unified combatant commands in the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for providing contingency planning, op ...

. Their operation was dubbed the Southcom Reconnaissance System, and Northrop Grumman held the $8.6 million contract for the work. As the program became increasingly successful, several former pilots and others familiar with the program said civilian managers pushed flight crews farther over the jungles, often at night and sometimes 300 miles from their base. Their mission expanded, too, from locating targets in the illegal drug trade chosen by the American Embassy to keeping a lookout for leftist terrorist guerrillas, who also delved in the drug trade, 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 The Cessna 208 Caravan is a utility aircraft produced by Cessna. The project was commenced on November 20, 1981, and the prototype first flew on December 9, 1982. The production model was certified by the FAA in October 1984 and its Cargoma ...

– for a country as big and mountainous as Colombia. Two pilots, Paul C. Hooper and Douglas C. Cocker, wrote letters in November and December 2002 to Northrop Grumman warning that flying single-engine planes was a recipe for disaster. The letters suggested that the Cessnas be replaced with twin-engine Beechcraft King Air 300s. The planes were not replaced, and the two pilots resigned. After two crashes, which temporarily halted the program, Northrop Grumman resumed the operation under a different name, the Colombia Surveillance System, using twin-engine planes. After the first crash, the program was transferred to a newly created company, CIAO Inc.

Abduction

Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes, and Keith Stansell were on a drug surveillance mission in Colombia's

cocaine Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly used recreationally for its euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from the leaves of two Coca species native to South Am ...

-producing southern jungle when their single-engine Cessna plane crashed on February 13, 2003, in territory controlled by FARC. The American pilot, Tom Janis, and a Colombian army intelligence officer, Sgt. Luis Alcides Cruz, were led out by FARC gunmen and shot. The three surviving Americans (Gonsalves, Stansell and Howes) were forced to march with the guerrillas, deeper and deeper into the jungle. After this, the three Americans' exact location was lost by US intelligence. 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. Then Colombian journalist Jorge Botero was allowed to contact the hostages and record a tape to prove that they were alive and well – and ready to be traded for imprisoned members of the FARC being held by the Colombian government.

Publications

*'' Out of Captivity'' is a book authored by Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Thomas Howes with the assistance of author Gary Brozek about their time spent as hostages of

FARC The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army ( es, link=no, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de ColombiaEjército del Pueblo, FARC–EP or FARC) is a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conf ...

guerrillas.

References

External links

Americans Held Hostage
- web site dedicated to the hostages release.
Held Hostage in Colombia
documentary film
The Forgotten Hostages
on CBS 60 Minutes II {{DEFAULTSORT:Gonsalves, Marc 2000s missing person cases American people taken hostage Formerly missing people Kidnapped businesspeople Living people Missing person cases in Colombia People from Bristol, Connecticut Recipients of the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom United States Air Force officers 1972 births