US rushes to rescue its spy plane

US rushes to rescue its spy plane
JEREMY PAGE

SANYA (CHINA), April 2: US diplomats arrived on the Chinese island of Hainan today to help win the release of 24 American air crew and ensure that their Navy spy plane packed with top-secret electronics does not fall into Chinese hands.

The US aircraft made an emergency landing on the tropical southern island yesterday after a mid-air collision during a game of cat and mouse with a Chinese fighter plane which crashed. Two defence attaches from the US Embassy in Beijing arrived in Haikou, capital of Hainan, to join a third diplomat already sent in from the US Consulate in southern Guangzhou. The two were met by a Chinese official, jumped into a van and sped off towards Lingshui military airport on the southern edge of the island province near the city of Sanya.

Earlier, a spokesperson for the US Pacific Command in Honolulu bluntly warned Beijing to stay away from the EP-3 marine surveillance plane. ‘‘The entire aircraft is considered sovereign US territory, and the Chinese are not to seize, inspect or board it without US permission,’’ said Lt Commander Sean Kelly. ‘‘As far as we know, they have not boarded the plane.’’

Washington has called on Beijing to return the crew and facilitate the repair of the damaged spy plane before sending it on its way. It was not clear exactly what Naval Attache Bradley Kaplan and Defence Attache Neal Sealock hoped to achieve, or whether they would even get access to the Americans. Nor was it known whether the crew were still on board the plane, which sent out a ‘‘Mayday’’ distress signal before limping into Hainan.

There has been no contact with the plane since it sent out a message after landing at Lingshui yesterday morning . But Chinese authorities have told US officials that all the Americans are safe. Beijing has said the fighter plane crashed after the collision over the South China Sea in international air space and a search for the pilot was under way.

The US has launched a flurry of diplomatic activity in Beijing and Washington to try to resolve an incident that could, if it drags on, inflame popular emotions in China and the US and sour relations at a delicate juncture. China and the US blamed each for the mid-air tangle during what was apparently a routine interception off the Chinese coast.

China issued an angry statement saying the four-engine propeller-driven US aircraft veered into the fighter and hit with its nose and left wing. But the head of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Dennis Blair, said it was probably an accident caused by the fighter bumping into the American plane. Two F-8 fighters were scrambled to intercept the lumbering American aircraft based in Okinawa in Japan.

‘‘If I had to guess right now, I would say it’s an accident, it’s not a normal practice to play bumper cars in the air, it’s too dangerous for everybody,’’ Blair told a news conference in Hawaii.

The incident threatened to damage Sino-US relations at a time when US President Bush faces a crucial decision on whether to sell advanced weapon systems to Taiwan. A Foreign Ministry statement said Beijing had threatened further ‘‘representations’’ over the plane entering Chinese air space and landing without permission.

Whether the incident does serious political damage may depend on how quickly Beijing returns the crew and plane. ‘‘A lot depends on what the Chinese do in the next couple of days,’’ said Bates Gill, head of the Center for North-east Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. China is particularly alarmed at the possibility that Washington might sell Taiwan its Aegis radar system.

Reuters