Navy flight crew begins debriefing

By Johnny Brannon and Michele Kayal
Advertiser Staff Writers

Before they are reunited with loved ones in Washington this weekend, 24 Navy fliers who were detained in China will be questioned intensely by the U.S. military about their 12-day ordeal.

Nicholas Mellos, of Ypsilanti, Mich., a crew member of the detained EP-3, waves an American flag upon disembarking a C-17 plane from Guam. Associated Press

"They'll be asked who, what, when, where and why," said Bill Roome, a spokesman for the Navy Region Hawai'i.

The crew of the Navy EP-3E Aries II surveillance plane was forced to make an emergency landing on Hainan island in the South China Sea after it collided with a Chinese fighter jet. Chinese officials refused to release the crew after the accident.

They leave for their home base at Whidbey Island, Wash., from Hickam Air Force Base tomorrow at 7:30 a.m, Roome said.

At home, 10,000 people — or half of Whidbey Island —are expected to turn out when the former detainees touch down at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, an NAS public affairs officer said. Many will brandish banners, signs and lots of goodwill.

"When it's a small community, it touches everyone," said Sue Karahalios, a science and health teacher at Oak Harbor Middle School, where two of the servicemen's wives have been substitute teachers.

The students have signed a giant yellow ribbon that Karahalios said will be displayed in the hangar that day for the returnees, an outsized rendition of the thousands of yellow ribbons that have adorned nearly every boulevard, building and resident of Whidbey Island since the incident occurred.

But before then, intelligence experts will want to know what questions the Chinese asked and what responses were given, said the head of a military think tank in Honolulu.

"They'll be trying to sift through the data to understand the Chinese motivation" for holding and interrogating the 21 men and three women, said Lt. Gen. (Ret.) H.C. Stackpole, president of the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies.

The questions could provide clues to China's military intelligence capabilities, and could help determine whether America's intelligence has now been compromised, he said.

The damaged plane was loaded with surveillance equipment when it made an emergency landing on Hainan island, and China has refused to release the aircraft.

Crew members arrived at Hickam Air Force Base early yesterday and are now being queried at Pearl Harbor by 12 separate groups of debriefers.

Stackpole, former commander of Marine forces in the Pacific, said the U.S. military will want to know exactly how the collision occurred, how the crew was treated, and anything they may have noticed about their surroundings while they were detained.

He said the debriefers are sure to focus sharply on the fact that the U.S. plane's pilot and mission commander, Lt. Shane Osborn, was detained apart from the others for a period.

"That's particularly important, what happened when he was segregated from the rest of the crew," Stackpole said.

Osborn has been credited with saving the lives of the other crew members by safely landing the stricken plane on Hainan after the collision.

An enthusiastic crowd cheers as members of the EP-3 surveillance aircraft as they step onto the tarmac at Hickam AFB. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

But the Navy's official welcome is only a prelude to the town-wide festivities scheduled for April 28, when City Hall and the Chamber of Commerce will combine Oak Harbor's annual "Holland Happening" parade with an homage to the returned service members.

The returnees have been made honorary Grand Marshals of the parade, which takes place each year to commemorate the island's Dutch heritage.

Almost immediately after the announcement yesterday by Mayor Patricia Cohen's office, a steady stream of parade volunteers began pouring through the doors at City Hall and the Chamber, said Chamber events director Heidi Kuzina.

"Everybody wants to be a part of this celebration," Kuzina said. "These people are our neighbors, the parents of people who go to school with our kids, they attend our churches and we rub shoulders with them everywhere we go."

Ten thousand people usually turn out for the parade, Kuzina said, but this year even more are expected.

Oak Harbor also plans to invite Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and Gov. Gary Locke.

The homecoming takes place after an ordeal that tried the crew members and their families.

When the 24 crew members arrived at Hickam they were greeted by commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet Adm. Thomas Fargo, Hawai'i's congressional delegation and a crowd of military and civilian well-wishers.

Melaina Sanders, whose husband, Michael, is a Navy pilot stationed on O'ahu, said she and many other military spouses were thrilled to see the crew return.

"It's the best feeling in the world," she said. "Our husbands deploy all the time and there's a constant threat, but you can't concentrate on that. When something happens, we all come together. If it was our guys who had been in China, the wives of these men would be supporting us."

In a telephone call to his mother, Osborn said the crew struggled to land the crippled Navy surveillance plane safely after the two aircraft collided.

"He said it took every bit of strength that he had. All the crew helped," Diane Osborn of Norfolk, Neb., told MSNBC. "He was well trained by the Navy and I thank God He gave him the strength to get it down."

The crew's first contact with American soil was at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. Some of the freed crew members leaned out bus windows to shake hands with onlookers.

The crew had been held since the collision, which shattered the tail fin of the Chinese fighter and sent it spiraling out of control, Chinese state media said. The pilot, Wang Wei, is missing and presumed dead.

Advertiser Staff Writer Yasmin Anwar contributed to this report.