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US data shows Chinese jet was flying under spy plane

A Chinese fighter jet was flying below the US EP-3 propeller plane when the spy plane banked to the left, the Washington Post said yesterday quoting Western sources in Beijing.

Briefed by US officials, the unidentified sources did not make clear who was to blame for Sunday's mid-air collision over the South China Sea that forced the US spy plane to make an emergency landing on China's Hainan island, where its 24 crew members were taken into custody.

However, the sources said the data provided by US officials seems to explain China's assertion that the incident was the fault of the US because the EP-3 moved "suddenly" causing the accident.

The accident led to the fighter's crash into the sea and the disappearance of its pilot.

Earlier accounts of the accident indicated that the EP-3 had been intercepted by two Chinese F-8s, but no public mention was made of the Chinese jet's position beneath the US spy plane, or the US plane's banking maneuver to the left.

The Western sources also said that after the bump, the spy plane fell 2,440m before the pilot succeeded in righting it.

At that point, the sources added, the US crew began destroying sensitive software and data in the plane to prevent it falling into Chinese hands.

The US spy plane, a Pentagon official said, made an extremely fast landing at Lingshui air base on Hainan, because the pilot feared the collision might have damaged his controls and that only one of his flaps (which brake the plane on descent) may have been working.

After it had come to a rest, the US plane was surrounded, then boarded by Chinese guards who escorted the 24 US airmen at gunpoint off the plane, the Western source said.

A day later, the source said, the Chinese army dispatched a cargo plane loaded with men and technical equipment from Beijing to the base to study the US aircraft.

In related matters, US Senator Richard Lugar said yesterday that the pilot of the lost Chinese jet had challenged the US plane on previous occasions.

"It appears to me on this occasion he simply exceeded his grasp," Lugar said of the Chinese aviator: "The pilot involved is apparently the same pilot who's been observed by our reconnaissance aircraft in the past."

Lugar spoke yesterday on US television. "The flight we were flying is a regular flight, known to the Chinese, known to the Indians, the Pakistanis, everyone in the area," he said. "So there were very few surprises with this lumbering plane moving along." Nevertheless, Lugar said, in recent days Chinese fliers, "and this particular pilot on several occasions," had challenged the surveillance flight.

"It is tragic for him and tragic for the Chinese and tragic for us, because it was only a miracle that our plane got down safely and the 24 Americans are still alive," Luger said.

Former Defense Secretary William Cohen said the US had previously protested the practices of Chinese interceptor pilots.

"A very strong protest was lodged back in January [over] these fighter aircraft coming within a matter of feet of reconnaissance aircraft, thereby posing a danger to all concerned. That apparently is what happened here," Cohen said.

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