Sunday, April 15, 2001

By Carlos Bongioanni, Stars and Stripes

U.S. Navy photo / Special to Stripes Navy Lt. Shane Osborn, mission commander of the EP-3E that was forced to land in China, speaks to the media at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, Saturday.

HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE, Hawaii — Navy pilot Lt. Shane Osborn was sure he and his crew would die when Chinese fighter aircraft clipped their plane earlier this month.

"The first thing I thought was, ‘this guy just killed us,’" Osborn said of the impact, which instantly sent the EP-3E Aries II surveillance aircraft he was piloting plummeting through the air.

Osborn and Senior Chief Petty Officer Nicholas Mellos fielded questions from reporters and gave details of the incident for the first time in a public forum during a press conference held here Saturday. They spoke for 12 minutes before the entire crew boarded a C-9 aircraft that transported them back to their home station at Whidbey Island, Wash.

The EP-3 crew had been patrolling above the South China Sea when two Chinese intercept fighters began harassing them. One Chinese pilot had twice brought his aircraft as close as three to five feet from the U.S. plane, Osborn said.

On his third pass, the Chinese pilot nipped the Aries’ number one propeller, which ripped apart the fighter aircraft, said Osborn. He added that the Chinese jet’s nose hit the EP-3’s nose, and its tail punched a whole in the bottom of the surveillance plane, which then rolled a hard 130 degrees to its left and started a nosedive.

"I remember looking up and seeing water," Osborn recalled. The plane had rolled so far, it was "getting near the inverted side," he added.

Chinese reports stating the U.S. plane banked first and caused the crash are untrue, Osborn said.

"The sharp left turn they were talking about is when the aircraft went out of control, after the tail of their aircraft impacted our aircraft." Contrary to Chinese assertions, he added, the Aries was flying level and straight up until the collision.

"I’m here to tell you, we did it right. No apology is necessary on our part," Osborn said. The fault lies with the Chinese pilot, he said.

Initially, the plane fell 7,500 feet in a near-inverted dive position. Mellos said it was complete "mayhem" aboard the aircraft at first.

"We were losing altitude and pretty much had our hands full," Mellos recalled. "We were yelling across the cockpit … trying to assess which systems were up and which systems were lost. … Thank God for the training we do every day, because I’m hear to tell you, without it, we wouldn’t be here. There would be a different press conference today."

But Osborn was able to gain airspeed and slowly roll the plane back to a level position. He eventually dropped another 5,000 feet to stabilize the aircraft. He ordered the crew to initiate its emergency destruct plan and he ordered the crew to prepare for a possible ditching of the aircraft. Osborn would not elaborate on how much of the plane’s sensitive data the crew had destroyed before landing.

Osborn also sent out at least 15 mayday calls and asked for permission to land in Hainan, he said.

"I know we were transmitting, but I can’t tell you what they heard and what they didn’t hear."

He couldn’t hear very well in his own aircraft because holes in the fuselage were allowing tremendous wind noise to penetrate the depressurized aircraft.

Osborn eventually made an emergency landing at a Chinese military air base on Hainan island. Chinese officials there detained the U.S. crew for 12 days, then finally released them Thursday after a series of diplomatic negotiations between the two countries.

Military officials have kept a tight lid on the crew’s version of the story for the past three days during extensive debriefings. The debriefs began on the flight from China and continued all day Thursday and Friday at Hickam.

A lot of the crewmembers were in shock once the plane landed, Osborn said. He said their Chinese captors fed them well and were polite, respectful and allowed them to see doctors. One unpleasant part of their captivity, Osborn said, was the interrogations.

He said the Chinese interrogated them repeatedly, "because they were interested in the accident, first and foremost."

Lack of sleep was another problem.

"That first night, I had four to five hours of sleep and I hadn’t been to bed for 30 hours at that point," Osborn said.

Now that the crew is back in the States, they’ll have a period of time to recuperate before returning to their duties. It is not known how the crewmembers were traumatized by the incident or whether they will immediately resume their surveillance duties in the air.

"America should be very proud of these 23 airmen," Osborn said of his crew, which pulled together under extremely harrowing conditions to carry out their tasks, even in the face of what appeared certain death.

RELATED STORY:
          China halts search for missing fighter pilot, tones down rhetoric

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