U.S., China strike deal to send EP-3E
reconnaissance plane home in pieces
By Carlos Bongioanni,
Stars and Stripes
A crippled U.S. spy plane stranded in China will be coming home in
pieces, possibly aboard a huge Russian-designed cargo aircraft, under a tentative
agreement between U.S. and Chinese officials.
The two nations are still negotiating details of the return,
officials cautioned Monday, but it appeared the impasse has been broken in the incident
that soured U.S.-Chinese relations.
The United States has been demanding return of the lumbering EP-3
since it landed in China on April 1 following a collision with a Chinese jet fighter.
“People are talking about the AN-124” to fly the spy plane
out, a U.S. administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The
transport plane is identified on military Internet sites as the world’s largest cargo
aircraft.
A Pentagon official who spoke on condition of anonymity said
“although an agreement, in principle, has been reached, there is still much, much to
be done … This is a very delicate negotiation.”
“It’s not what the United States wants, but that’s
what we’ll take,” said the Pentagon official.
Under the proposed scenario, the wings and tail section of the the
EP-3 — which is about the size of a Boeing 737 commercial jetliner — would be
taken off the plane. The sections would then be flown out in one or two of the huge
Rusisan-designed AN-124 cargo crafts.
“(Pacific Command) is standing ready to do whatever is necessary
to retrieve the aircraft,” said Maj. Marcella Adams, a spokeswoman for the command.
Adams said the U.S. State Department is leading the discussions with the Chinese, and the
Pacific Command is waiting for further word on how to proceed.
While there has been speculation that the plane could reassembled and
again made airworthy, it could not be learned Monday if that was certain. A Bush
administration official referred the question to Pentagon technical experts, who could not
be reached over the Memorial holiday.
The AN-124, which first flew under the Soviet flag in 1982, is made
both in the Ukraine and Russia and used commercially.
In China, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao was quoted by the
official Xinhua News Agency as saying the United States would be permitted “in
principle” to send an Antonov-124 to pick up the plane.
Asked how long it would take to get the plane home, one Pentagon
official said: “What we said was we wanted to get the plane back via the quickest
possible means. This is one way to get it out in an expedited way. We don’t have a
timeline.”
But an aircraft maintainer at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, said it could
take weeks to remove the plane, given the conditions that crews will have to work under
while in China.
“First they’ll have to take the engines off, that’s no
big deal. We do that all the time,” he said, speaking on a condition of anonymity.
“Then they’ll have to remove the wings. They’ll have to take off the wing
bolts and all the rivets that hold it to the fuselage and then remove all the flight
control cables … everything that goes out to the wings.”
The veteran mechanic said he didn’t know if the EP-3 would be
brought to Kadena, but he said it is likely that the EP-3 manufacturers would send
civilian crews to China disassemble the plane and then reassemble it.
The whole process should take months, he said.
The Navy plane has been at a Chinese air base on the southern island
of Hainan since the collision above the South China Sea, a crash that cost the life of the
Chinese pilot. After the crippled U.S. plane made what China called an unauthorized
emergency landing, the crew of 24 was held for 11 days while each country blamed the other
for the accident.
U.S. technicians who inspected the plane earlier this month said it
could be made air worthy, and Washington officials pushed Beijing to let the aircraft be
repaired and they flown out of China.
Zhu said last week that China would let the United States have the
damaged plane back, but said flying it out would be “impossible.”
U.S. officials said China originally refused to consider allowing a
cargo plane to land at Lingshui air base, fearing the runway wouldn’t be able to
handle the massive aircraft’s weight.
That could have forced the plane to be chopped up and crated out,
condemning the $80 million aircraft to the scrap heap.
RELATED STORY:
As they return to duty, EP-3E
crew members talk about incident
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