Posted at 8:40 a.m., Saturday, April 14, 2001
U.S. pilot: 'This guy just killed us'
By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer
The pilot of the Chinese jet fighter lost control of his aircraft and collided with the U.S. spy plane after twice veering within feet of it to gesture at the crew, the American pilot said today.
"Previous times they would get close to us but not that close," said Lt. Shane Osborn during his first public comments about the April 1 incident. Osborn answered reporters' questions at Hickam Air Force Base shortly before he and members of his crew boarded a plane for Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Washington. The 24 crew members of the Navy EP-3E were held for 11 days on Hainan Island as international tensions rose between China and the U.S. over their detention. They were released earlier this week and spent the last two days in intelligence and medical debriefings at Pearl Harbor. China has become increasingly aggressive in encounters with American reconnaissance aircraft, Pentagon officials have said. Osborn said the Chinese fighter plane flew so near that it clipped one of the U.S. plane's four propellers, breaking the fighter aircraft apart and sending the Americans into a terrifying dive.
"The first thing, I thought was, 'This guy just killed us,'" Osborn said.
The stricken U.S. plane lost cabin pressure and rolled upside down as it screamed toward the earth. "We had serious vibration problems," said Osborn, 26, of Norfolk, Neb. "That propeller was still spinning with part of it missing." Osborn's account of the accident sharply contradicted what China has maintained since the accident, which it blamed solely on the U.S. The pilot of the Chinese plane has not been found and is presumed dead.
A flight engineer in the cockpit with Osborn described the scene after the collision as mayhem.
"After the accident, Lt. Osborn was trying to get the plane under control," said Sr. Petty Officer Nicholas Mellos, 45, from Ann Arbor, Mich.
Osborn was praised by military officials for safely landing the crippled surveillance plane. The plane remains in Chinese hands with meetings planned to negotiate its release. The U.S. crew departed Hickam for Whidbey Island at 7:30 a.m. They are expected to land in Washington at about 1 p.m., Hawai'i time when a large welcoming celebration and reunions with their families are planned.
