Thursday May 3 3:44 PM ET China Refuses Power to Check U.S. Aircraft-Pentagon

By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Chinese military on Thursday refused to provide electric power for a team of visiting American technicians to make damage checks aboard a crippled U.S. Navy (news - web sites) reconnaissance plane held in China for a month, a Pentagon (news - web sites) spokesman said.

Navy Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said the United States had a prior understanding with China's Foreign Ministry that power would be provided at a military airfield on Hainan Island and that an another attempt would be made to check the plane's equipment and engines on Friday.

The People's Liberation Army ``was unwilling to provide power despite the understanding,'' Quigley told reporters, adding that the PLA had also refused to allow the team to use secure communications equipment carried with them to Hainan.

``We believed it (the agreement) was clear,'' the spokesman said. ``It is not at all clear that there is good communication flow from one part of the Chinese government to another.''

The five civilian technicians from Lockheed Martin Corp. began inspecting the four-engine EP-3E on Wednesday for damage caused by an April 1 collision with a Chinese fighter jet.

Held Since Collision With Fighter

The plane has been at a military airfield on the island in the South China Sea since it made an emergency landing there following the collision.

The 24-member American crew was held by the Chinese for 11 days after the incident before being released, but Beijing has thus far refused to turn the four-engine reconnaissance aircraft back over to the United States.

Quigley said the American Embassy in Beijing and the U.S. military's Pacific Command in Hawaii as well as the Navy had been dealing with the Chinese Foreign Ministry (news - web sites) on assessing damage to the aircraft.

Defense officials say the EP-3E, which received major damage to its nose and engines, would probably have to be dismantled for return to the United States.

``We believed that we had transmitted through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the technical support that we needed, particularly electrical power, so that we could power up the airplane and find out which systems were still operable, which were damaged, what was the extent of the damage and what have you,'' Quigley told reporters.

Reasons 'Not Clear'

``For one reason or another, we're not clear why that is, those technical requirements did not get down to the PLA Navy forces that are there at Lingshui airfield. So we did not get power to the airplane,'' he added.

``We're trying again now. We're hopeful. We need one more full day, and if we could do that tomorrow (Friday), we think we can complete the assessment that we need.''

Quigley said the team had to use Chinese telephone lines on which the Chinese could listen to conversations.

``What we know is that the communications that are available to the assessment team are, indeed, non-secure, and so they will just choose their words carefully,'' he told reporters.

``The secure communications equipment that they brought with them were not acceptable for use by the Chinese and they remain on the charter aircraft that the crew or the assessment team took in with them.''

Quigley said the technicians had not provided an initial damage assessment to the Pentagon and he expected that would not be done until they stopped at Pacific Command headquarters in Hawaii.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2001