China holds plane, crew

By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

A U.S. surveillance plane and its 24 crew members remained in Chinese custody yesterday after being forced to make an emergency landing Sunday, and military authorities at U.S. Pacific Command headquarters grew increasingly concerned.

They want their high-tech electronic surveillance plane and its crew returned immediately.

The crewmen are reported safe and uninjured.

"It's been 18 hours now and nothing has happened,'' Adm. Dennis C. Blair said yesterday morning at Camp H.M. Smith on Halawa Heights. "We are waiting, right now, for the Chinese government to give us the kind of cooperation that is expected of countries in situations like this."

Late yesterday evening, military authorities were still waiting.

Blair, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, the military command with jurisdiction over the incident, said he expected the Chinese to stay away from the aircraft and allow its crew to contact their unit and make arrangements for repairs.

Instead, he said, military officials had not heard from the crew of the Navy plane since moments after it landed, when the pilot radioed that all crew members had arrived safely.

"If a Chinese aircraft had been 70 miles off Kane'ohe here in Hawai'i, and had had some sort of collision or damage, and declared an in-flight emergency and said it was coming in to Kane'ohe, we would have assisted," he said. "We would have talked it in, had a crash crew out on the ramp in case it had trouble, and then we would have provided assistance to the crew of that aircraft to get in touch with their home base or their government. We would have respected the immunity of the aircraft.

"That's what the international obligations of all of us are in situations like this. You hear a lot of talk, especially from the Chinese, about a Cold War mentality. This is an example to me of how the Chinese can show this is not a Cold War mentality."

'Lights burning bright'

Blair and his staff were watching the incident closely as U.S. diplomats and military attaches in China were traveling to the Chinese airfield last night to see what could be done.

"The lights are burning bright up at Camp Smith tonight," said Navy Cmdr. John Singley, U.S. Pacific Command spokesman.

The U.S. plane, a Navy EP-3 out of Whidby Island, Wash., and temporarily operating out of Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, was forced to make an emergency landing Sunday on an island in the South China Sea. The crew reported a Chinese F-8 fighter jet had bumped into its wing around 3:15 p.m. Hawai'i time.

Two Chinese F-8 aircraft had intercepted the EP-3, a four-engine, electronic-warfare and reconnaissance aircraft that uses state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, about 70 miles off of Hainan Island above the South China Sea.

Blair said the EP-3 was flying in international air space.

Charles Morrison, president of the East-West Center, said the Chinese may not see the area where the EP-3 was flying as international airspace.

"China has wide ocean claims," Morrison said. "They may see it as their territory."

Morrison said as far as any impact the incident may have on U.S.-China relations, the ball is probably in China's court.

"It's an unfortunate incident," he said. "Obviously, if they try to keep the plane or mishandle the crew in any way, it could be a very serious incident."

U.S. planes routinely fly surveillance missions off the coast of China, and Chinese planes routinely fly close intercept missions around them, Blair said.

Chinese news agencies are blaming the Navy EP-3 for causing the collision, but Blair said common sense dictates the smaller, faster and more maneuverable Chinese F-8s, similar to American F-16s, were at fault. The EP-3 is a slower-moving, propeller-driven aircraft about the size of a 737.

Blair also said that Chinese aircraft on intercept missions off the coast of China have been increasingly aggressive toward U.S. planes, flying closer during the past two months, to the point that he and other U.S. officials had complained to the Chinese about unsafe practices.

Cat-and-mouse games

The collision Sunday, he said, was most likely accidental but the result of increasingly unsafe practice.

Ralph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it was also his impression that the fighter pilot was most likely at fault.

The Pacific Forum CSIS is the Honolulu affiliate of the Washington-based CSIS, one of the largest think tanks in the United States.

Cossa said intercept planes and reconnaissance planes frequently play cat-and-mouse games in international waters, with the smaller jets flying close enough to exchange hand signals — friendly or otherwise — with the crew of the larger, intelligence gathering airplane.

But, he said, there are rules of the game. Above all, pilots avoid making physical contact.

"It sounds like this was an overzealous fighter pilot who was trying to make the EP-3 nervous and got too close and bumped him," Cossa said.

Incident may hurt China

He said the incident places the Chinese in a situation similar to what the United States was in when it accidentally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the bombing of Yugoslavia.

"It will set the tone for how China will deal with the new Bush administration," he said. "And so far, having had the plane for so long, they're not doing a very good job."

The incident could prove especially damaging to China, particularly as the administration is considering selling arms packages to Taiwan, a move China opposes.

"If they don't give it (the airplane) back," Cossa said, "I think you'll be hearing a cry go up in Congress that the Chinese are hostile and can't be trusted, and this is not a time they would want that, not while we're considering the arms deal."

China is reporting that the pilot of the F-8 involved in the crash is missing. U.S. officials say they have no direct information about the fate of the F-8 or its pilot.