Saturday, April 14, 2001

By Sandra Jontz and Lisa Burgess, Washington bureau

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Friday blasted the Chinese version of the midair collision that downed a U.S. Navy spy plane and led to a 12-day standoff to free U.S. crewmembers.

Now that the crew is safely returning home, Rumsfeld felt no obligation to withhold information that, in his definition, clearly places a Chinese pilot at fault for the April 1 collision.

"The reality is that the People’s Republic of China for 12 days have been characterizing the collision in a way that is different from our crew has explained to me," Rumsfeld said. "These are facts. There is no spin; there are no adjectives involved. It is a simple and factual presentation of what took place."

Rumsfeld showed reporters a videotape of a close encounter between a U.S. EP-3 Aries II and a Chinese pilot on Jan. 24. The video, shot by a U.S. Navy crewmember on a similar reconnaissance mission, shows a Chinese pilot coming within feet of the EP-3.

"Whoa, he flew right in front of us," a crewmember is heard saying on the videotape. The action caused a "thump," an aviation term when the jet wash from one aircraft jars a slower moving aircraft.

The unidentified crewmember also says the Chinese pilot has "a little bit of a problem" and was "acting squirrelly."

The Chinese F-8 fighter bears the same numbers as the aircraft that crashed into the EP-3. Rumsfeld did not know if it was the same pilot, however.

The Chinese pilot’s plane split in two after the collision and crashed into the ocean. He is presumed dead.

"Why did the Chinese pilot act so aggressively? It was clear the pilot intended to harass the crew," Rumsfeld said. The American crew, flying over international waters, did nothing wrong, he said.

"We have every right to fly where we were flying; they have every right to come up and observe the action. What the jet pilot did not have the right to do was to crash into the slower-moving prop aircraft," Rumsfeld said.

For months, Chinese pilots have been exhibiting aggressive interceptions, prompting U.S. officials to formally complain in December.

Despite the protest, Chinese fighters increased their interception missions — and on April 1, made the fatal mistake of crashing into a U.S. plane.

"This was clearly an accident," Rumsfeld said of the Chinese pilot’s collision. "He did not mean to do that. I am certain of that."

The U.S. military has logged 44 aggressive Chinese interceptions recently, of which six were within 30 feet of the U.S. plane and two within 10 feet, Rumsfeld said.

The crew was able to carry out the majority of their destruction checklist of sensitive surveillance electronics before armed Chinese boarded the aircraft, Rumsfeld said. He would not explain further.

Careful to impugn the media for calling the aircraft a spy plane, Rumsfeld said it was on an overt reconnaissance and surveillance mission that world militaries have been carrying out for years.

"Reconnaissance flights have been going on for decades," Rumsfeld said. "They’re not unusual. They are well understood by all nations."

Rumsfeld addressed three instances in which foreign planes made emergency landings on U.S. land or property. In all three, one dating back to 1974, the crewmembers of the distressed aircraft were cared for and fed, the planes were refueled and it was permitted to take off.

Rumsfeld also said the United States will not back down and cease flying these missions.

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