PACAF officials not talking
about possible escorts for surveillance flights
By Wayne Specht, Stars and Stripes
Pacific Air
Forces officials are keeping mum on possible use of Kadena-based F-15 fighters for escort
duty when Navy reconnaissance flights resume.
"I’m
not going to be able to discuss any operational details of the resumption of these
flights, whether they will be or are being escorted by fighters," PACAF spokesman
Maj. Vic Hines said Wednesday.
Despite
recent news reports that Kadena F-15s might provide stand-off escort duty by flying 100
miles away from lumbering reconnaissance aircraft such as the Navy’s EP-3E Aries II,
Hines said, guidance from the Department of Defense does not allow comment at the PACAF
level.
Kadena
public affairs spokesman Masao Doi said Thursday, "As a matter of policy, we do not
discuss operational details."
U.S.
defense officials were quoted by CNN on April 15, saying the Air Force has started
training for possible fighter-escort flights once the military resumes aerial surveillance
missions along the Chinese coast.
Reconnaissance
flights off China’s coast have been suspended since the April 1 midair collision
between a U.S. Navy EP-3E Aries II electronic surveillance plane and a Chinese F-8
fighter.
The Chinese
pilot is presumed dead, while the U.S. plane made an emergency landing on China’s
Hainan island.
According
to the CNN report, a senior Pentagon official confirmed the rehearsal missions are being
flown out of Kadena, involving F-15C fighters. Also involved in the dry run was an Air
Force RC-135 electronic surveillance aircraft, and an AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control
System) radar and battle management plane.
However,
the official stressed that "no decision has been made" to resume surveillance
flights, and "no option has been selected" as to how they would be carried out.
Sources say
the Bush administration may be reluctant to provide fighter escorts because China would
view the move as an escalation of tension.
If the
fighters participate, they probably would not escort the surveillance planes, but rather
loiter at a considerable distance — within radar range — in the event a Chinese
interceptor jet came too close.
Pentagon
sources, the CNN report said, said that once the reconnaissance flights resume, the first
mission may not be by a Navy EP-3, but a faster Air Force RC-135 surveillance plane. The
RC-135 "Rivet Joint" is an electronic listening and monitoring aircraft that is
basically a modified Boeing 707 — the Navy EP-3 Aires is a propeller-driven aircraft.
An RC-135 "Rivet Joint" from Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., currently is deployed
to Kadena.
But
Pentagon officials are not discussing when those flights will resume.
"We
have made no announcement on scheduling or any of the details of those flights, other than
to say that we intend to continue to fly reconnaissance and surveillance flights around
the world in international airspace, in accordance with international law," Rear Adm.
Craig R. Quigley said during a recent Pentagon press briefing.
Quigley
also declined to discuss possible escorts of flights by Okinawa-based aircraft.
"It’s
something that we, in a general sense, insist on our right to do that in international
airspace and in accordance with international law. But it’s not something I’m
going to provide those sorts of details about," he said.
"I
have no interest in broadcasting when our surveillance and reconnaissance flights are
operating in a particular part of the world," Quigley said.
Mark Oliva contributed
to this report.
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