| U.s.-china Spy Plane Incident |
Limousines in Hainan |
Website Links For Hainan Island Incident |
Information AboutU.s.-china Spy Plane Incident |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT HAINAN ISLAND INCIDENT | |
| espionage scandals and incidents | |
| sino-american relations | |
| aviation accidents and incidents in china | |
| aviation accidents and incidents in 2001 | |
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| 2001 in china | |
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On April 1 , 2001 , a United States Navy EP-3E signals reconnaissance aircraft was intercepted by People's Liberation Army Navy J-8IIM fighter jets about 70 miles (110 km) off the Chinese island of Hainan . The People's Republic Of China later claimed that this plane was spying on Chinese military facilities. During the flight there was contact between the wing of the EP-3E and one of the Chinese J-8s, which forced the EP-3E to make an emergency landing on Hainan. The Americans claim that one of the Chinese jets bumped the wing of the larger, slower, and less manuverable EP-3E, while the Chinese claim the opposite - that it was the American plane that swerved into the flight path of the J-8. On the day of the collision, J-8s approached the EP-3 with less than 10 meters to spare six times, and twice came within three meters before Wang's fighter hit the plane on the 44th intercept. Crew members claimed they had on previous flights seen Wang fly so close that when he held up a piece of paper containing an e-mail address, it was readable. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld later showed a video of a J-8 pilot flying dangerously close and nearly hitting another EP-3E two weeks earlier, saying the pilot may have been Wang. Chinese authorities doubted the authenticity of the video. Information in the black boxes of both planes however, were not made public so the matter is still of some dispute. The Chinese pilot, Wang Wei , was missing and presumed dead following the incident. The crew of 24 was detained and released 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 . The EP-3E was carrying sensitive listening equipment. Navy protocol calls for destruction of this equipment in the event the plane is captured or if there is a chance it will be boarded by non-U.S. personnel. Chinese military did board the plane after it landed in Hainan but it is not known if any sensitive information was retrieved. This incident was often compared to the U-2 Spy Plane Crisis of 1960. See also: Sino-American Relations EXTERNAL LINKS
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