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China Jets Intercept U.S. Navy Plane

By Martin Fackler Associated Press Writer Sunday, April 1, 2001; 10:32 a.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 plane did not appear to have crashed.

The EP-3 was on a routine surveillance flight in international airspace when two Chinese fighters intercepted it, he said.

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.

Experts said encounters with Chinese fighters are frequent as U.S. planes fly along China's coast eavesdropping on military communications. The U.S. military would not say how close Sunday's flight came to Chinese airspace.

"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 EP-3 landed at a military airfield at Lingshui, on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, said an official in the Hainan provincial government who gave only her surname, Wang.

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 Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment. An official at the Defense Ministry hung up when a reporter called.

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 EP-3 is an unarmed four-engine propeller plane that is packed with electronics for listening in on radio signals and monitoring radar sites.

The U.S. plane had taken off from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, the U.S. military said.

© Copyright 2001 The Associated Press

U.S. Navy Plane Lands in China After Interception

China Says Fighter Crashes, Blames U.S. for Collision

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), April 01, 2001