-Caveat Lector-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010401/aponline121044_000.ht
m
China Jets Intercept U.S. Navy Plane
By Martin Fackler
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, April 1, 2001; 12:10 p.m. EDT
BEIJING �� A U.S. Navy surveillance plane collided with a Chinese
fighter jet that intercepted it over the South China Sea on
Sunday and made an emergency landing in China, a U.S. military
spokesman said.
The 24 American crew members were not injured, said Col. John
Bratton, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii. The
Chinese government said the fighter crashed and its pilot was
missing.
The EP-3 was on a routine surveillance flight in international
airspace when two Chinese fighters intercepted it, Bratton said.
The EP-3 is an unarmed four-engine propeller plane equipped to
listen in on radio signals and monitor radar sites.
The collision appeared to be an accident and the Chinese did not
force the plane down, Bratton said.
"The planes actually bumped into each other," said another
Pacific Command spokesman, Lt. Col. Dewey Ford.
The incident comes at a touchy time in the United States'
relations with China. The Bush administration has taken a more
wary attitude toward Beijing, and China's recent detention of two
scholars with links to the United States has further raised
distrust.
A Chinese academic said encounters with Chinese fighters are
frequent as U.S. planes fly along China's coast eavesdropping on
military communications.
"It's very regular for the American Navy to have their planes
intruding into Chinese airspace," said Yan Xuetong, an expert in
international studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing. "The
Chinese then send up fighters and chase them out."
The U.S. military would not say how close Sunday's flight came to
Chinese airspace.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the collision occurred at 9:07
a.m. some 62 miles southeast of Hainan, a large island off the
southern Chinese coast.
Two Chinese fighters were sent up to track the plane as it
approached Chinese airspace, said the ministry statement.
"The U.S. plane abruptly diverted toward the Chinese planes, and
its head and left wing collided with one of the Chinese planes,
causing the Chinese plane to crash," the statement said.
It said rescuers were searching for the missing Chinese pilot.
The EP-3 landed at a military airfield at Lingshui, a town on the
southern end of Hainan, the statement said.
Hainan is a large island on China's south coast that is covered
with military bases because of its proximity to Vietnam and the
Spratly Islands, claimed by China and five other countries.
Bratton did not know the status of the crew, but he said the
Chinese appeared responsive to U.S. requests that they be well
treated and returned. They were believed to still be in Hainan.
"We see no problems with retrieving the crew," Bratton said.
The U.S. Embassy in Beijing "communicated our concern about the
incident" to the Chinese government, Bratton said. U.S.
authorities in Washington contacted the Chinese Embassy there as
well.
In a statement, the Pacific Command said it asked China "expedite
any necessary repairs to the aircraft, and facilitate the
immediate return of the aircraft and crew."
The U.S. plane had taken off from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa,
Japan, the U.S. military said.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
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