Beijing allows technicians to
board EP-3, assess damage, removal of equipment
By Lisa Burgess, Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — Chinese officials
let U.S. military technicians board and inspect the downed Navy EP-3 surveillance aircraft
on Wednesday, marking the first time Beijing has permitted access to the plane since the
midair collision with a Chinese fighter jet April 1.
Beijing promised the technicians
two days of access to the plane, saying that the team can board the aircraft again
Thursday to continue its inspection, the official said.
The technicians boarded the
aircraft on Wednesday afternoon "and began the process of [damage] assessment,"
a Pentagon official said Wednesday.
The team will determine whether the
plane can be repaired and flown off the southern resort island of Hainan, where its
24-member crew was forced to make an emergency landing.
The report also will reveal whether
Chinese officials have removed sensitive electronic surveillance equipment from the plane.
The $36 million EP-3E Aries II is a
large, slow-moving aircraft equipped with latest technological spy equipment.
When the aircraft’s pilot
began emergency landing procedures after the collision, the crew destroyed or deactivated
as much of the plane’s classified gear and sensitive information as possible,
Pentagon officials said.
How much of the emergency destruct
plan the crew was able to accomplish has never been publicly revealed.
U.S. officials have said they are
certain Chinese officials boarded the EP-3 shortly after its emergency landing and began
taking equipment, supposedly for further study and possible "reverse
engineering," in which computers are dissected by experts and then meticulously
reconstructed to reveal their technological capabilities.
Details of the technicians’
Wednesday findings are not available yet, the Pentagon official said.
The surveillance plane’s
downing and China’s subsequent 12-day detainment of its crew caused an already
strained relationship between Washington and Beijing to reach a near crisis.
China insisted that the crew would
not be released until the U.S. government formally apologized for the midair crash.
Washington flatly refused to do so.
The situation was defused after a
delicate diplomatic dance orchestrated by Secretary of State Colin Powell resulted in an
expression of U.S. regret that, while falling far short of accepting blame in English,
translated into an apology in Chinese.
China continues to insist that the
collision was caused by the EP-3, but U.S. aviation experts have said it is unlikely the
U.S. plane was at fault because it moves too slowly.
A more plausible scenario is that
the agile Chinese fighter plane collided with the EP-3, they said.
As soon as the crew was safely back
on U.S. soil, the Pentagon released a videotape of a Jan. 24 encounter between an EP-3 and
a Chinese fighter jet.
The video, shot by a U.S. Navy
crewmember on a similar reconnaissance mission, showed 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 unidentified crewmember went on
to say the Chinese pilot has " a little bit of a problem" and was "acting
squirrelly."
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