CHINA - US pilot, only flying for four years, did 'spectacular' job

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NYPost

SPY-PLANE'S PILOT EARNED HIS WINGS

By DEBORAH ORIN

April 12, 2001 -- WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is hailing the young Navy pilot who safely landed his crippled spy plane in China for a "spectacular" job that saved the lives of his entire crew.

"It was a spectacular feat of airmanship to bring it down safely," Pentagon spokesman Adm. Craig Quigley said of Lt. Shane Osborn last night.

U.S. officials have said Osborn - a 26-year-old Nebraska native who grew up loving to fly - told them the Chinese pilot twice buzzed his EP-3 Aries II turbo-prop within three feet.

He said he slowed the U.S. plane, which was on autopilot, to try to avoid a collision, but the Chinese jet hit it anyway, officials said.

The Navy plane lost its nose, a propeller, suffered other damage and fell 8,000 feet - with Osborn on the brink of telling the crew to bail out before he regained control and made a safe emergency landing.

The pilot did "a marvelous job of putting that plane on the ground" to save 24 lives, Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday.

Osborn - whose hometown of Norfolk, Va., is festooned with yellow ribbons in his honor - dreamed of being a pilot from childhood and first "flew" at age 3 or 4, sitting on his daddy's lap in a friend's two-seater Piper Cub.

He first took a plane's controls at age 13, and as a teenager joined the Civil Air Patrol, an Air Force auxiliary program that teaches cadets about flying, leadership, first aid and survival skills.

"He definitely wanted to be a pilot and was very gung-ho about going into the military," James Agnew, his former commander in the civil air patrol, told the Omaha World-Herald.

But he had a touch of rebellion as a teen - he was clean-cut and wore his hair short in front, but had a small, distinctly unmilitary ponytail in back.

"When we were in uniform and in formation, he was serious," fellow cadet Renee Rieken told the paper. But when the cadets had snacks at a local donut shop, "He liked to joke around. He was kind of a lively kid," she said.

Teachers and friends remembered him as a smart and spunky, athletic kid who worked as a hospital orderly, made patients smile and "could brighten up your day when you saw him" as one nurse put it.

"He was a real fun kid," his former football coach, Dan McLaughlin, said, adding he was surprised when Osborn, a solid player as a senior wide receiver, told him what tough academic courses he was taking.

"It was the first time I had understood how he was of superior intelligence," the coach said. "He looked at me with surprise at my surprise like, ‘What, you don't think I can do that?'"

In his 1990 yearbook at Norfolk Senior HS, Osborn wrote: "I want to have a career in the Air Force someday" - although he ended up instead as a Navy pilot.

He joined Navy ROTC at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and became a Navy officer and pilot when he graduated in 1996.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001

Answers

I hope that they fill this young man's left breast up with ribbons and medals. Hopefully, he'll get a new set of wings as well. Hope he's up to the pinning. :)

He did a great job!

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001


Thanks Git! I was wondering about that nose job the plane got. I was told that it was from the crash but hadn't seen it mentioned in the articles as yet.

Sheeple, you got that right. Flying the plane with no nose cone is hard enough, but with the engines running rough, and no way to tell which one should be shut down he had to keep them all going.

That landing was a feat of daring-do, and miraculous. The pilot deserves all medals awarded to him, and very heartfelt thanks from everyone!

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001


"That landing was a feat of daring-do, and miraculous. The pilot deserves all medals awarded to him, and very heartfelt thanks from everyone!"

i assume you are including the chinese here, barefoot?

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001


Don't assume anything

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001

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