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| CATEGORIES ABOUT EP-3E ARIES II | |
| u.s. military reconnaissance aircraft 1960-1969 | |
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The Lockheed EP-3E ARIES II is a Turboprop -based signals reconnaissance aircraft, operated by the United States Navy . It is based on a Lockheed P-3 Orion airframe, which is in turn based on the Lockheed L-188 Electra passenger airliner. There are 11 EP-3Es in the Navy's inventory, the last of which was delivered in 1997 . A total of 12 P-3C aircraft were converted to replace older versions of the aircraft, which had been converted in the late 1960s and early 1970s . From 1960 to 1991, the squadrons that flew the EP-3E also flew the Douglas EA-3B Skywarrior Seawing. General Characteristics
China Incident See Also: U.S.-China spy plane incident On April 1 , 2001 , an EP-3E was intercepted by Chinese J-8 fighter jets about 70 miles (110 km) off the Chinese island of Hainan . The Chinese later claimed that this plane was spying on Chinese military facilities. One of the Chinese jets bumped the wing of the EP-3E, which was forced to make an emergency landing on Hainan. The Chinese pilot, Wang Wei , was missing and presumed dead following the incident. The crew of 24 were detained and later released on April 11 after the U.S. issued the Letter Of The Two Sorries . The plane was airlifted to Dobbins Air Force Base in Georgia on July 3 , 2001 , using a Antonov An-124 . |
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