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Chinese Harassment To Blame For Mid-Air Collision
WASHINGTON, April 13 (News Agencies) - A Chinese fighter pilot was trying to harass a U.S. surveillance plane early this month before their collision that triggered a tense diplomatic standoff, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday.
Rumsfeld placed the blame for the April 1st accident squarely with the Chinese pilot who was killed by the collision that forced the U.S. plane to make an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island. The 24-member crew was held for 11 days before its release Thursday.
"It is clear that the pilot intended to harass the crew," Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon. "It was not the first time that our reconnaissance and surveillance flights flying in that area received that type of aggressive contact from interceptors.
"We had every right to be flying where we were flying," said Rumsfeld, noting that the U.S. EP-3 plane had been flying on an "overt reconnaissance mission in international airspace ... on a well-known flight path we have used for decades."
The defense secretary said the United States had raised formal protests both in Washington and Beijing on December 28th after a noted increase in aggressive approaches on U.S. aircraft by People's Liberation Army pilots.
"This is not an unusual practice to fly these reconnaissance flights; the United States has done it hundreds of times," he said. "At least six countries fly reconnaissance missions in Asia, including China; there was nothing new or different about the mission on March 31st."
The new element was that Chinese pilots started "maneuvering aggressively" against U.S. aircraft, Rumsfeld said, reporting 44 such incidents in recent months. On six occasions, the Chinese aircraft came within 30 feet (10 meters), twice within 10 feet (three meters), he said.
Showing a tape of one close encounter, Rumsfeld acknowledged that China has "every right to come up and observe our flight" and said: "What one does not have the right to do, and nor do I think it was anyone's intention, is to fly into another aircraft."
But he added, "The F-8 pilot clearly put at risk the lives of 24 Americans."
Rumsfeld's comments were part of a hardening U.S. position over the incident that ended with the United States winning the release of its crew after expressing regret for the death of the Chinese pilot and for entering Chinese airspace without verbal clearance.
The Pentagon chief outlined the U.S. pilot and crew's version of accounts, noting that "we have heard the People's Republic of China and the Peoples Liberation Army's version," in the past two weeks.
He denied the version of a second Chinese fighter pilot who witnessed the collision.
The EP-3 "did not deviate from its path until it had been hit - at which point the autopilot went off and it made a steep left turn and went from 5,000 to 8,000 feet as the crew attempted to gain control," Rumsfeld said.
Chinese pilot Zhao Yu had claimed that the U.S. plane made a sudden sharp turn, veering into the path of the fighter being flown by Wang Wei, who is missing and presumed dead.
Rumsfeld also outlined how the pilot of the U.S. plane, Shane Osborn, had repeatedly radioed out for permission to land on Chinese territory after the EP-3 was hit.
Damage to the EP-3 was such that metal perforated fuselage of aircraft, causing high volumes of noise in the cabin. "Therefore they really could not be aware as to whether their distress signals had been acknowledged."
"I am told that they made some 25 to 30 attempts to broadcast mayday and distress signals and to alert the world, as well as Hainan island, that they were going to be forced to land there."
The plane, as a result of the collision, had its elevators and nosecone damaged, its "antenna was wrapped around the tail ... one engine was out, another engine was damaged, [the] propeller was damaged," Rumsfeld said.
U.S. and Chinese representatives are to meet in Beijing on Wednesday to sort out the aftermath of the incident. Among the issues to be discussed is the fate of the U.S. aircraft, which is still on Hainan.
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