The US Air Force has begun training for the possibility it will be asked to fly F-15C fighter escort missions in conjunction with resuming aerial surveillance off China's coast, defense officials said.
No surveillance flights have been flown off China's coast since the April 1 collision of a Navy EP-3E Aries II electronic intelligence-gathering plane and a Chinese F-8 fighter. The fighter crashed and the pilot was killed, while the damaged Navy plane made an emergency landing on Hainan Island.
The Bush administration has made clear it intends to resume surveillance but has not decided whether the planes should be given some additional protection. The administration is reluctant to escort the surveillance planes with fighters because China would view that as an escalation of tensions.
If the F-15s are ordered to participate, they probably would not escort the surveillance planes but would loiter at a considerable distance -- within radar range -- in the event a Chinese interceptor jet came too close.
F-15s based at Kadena Air Base on the Japanese island of Okinawa flew practice missions of this type on Friday, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Also involved in the dry run was an Air Force RC-135 electronic surveillance aircraft and an AWACs radar and battle management plane.
Meanwhile, Army General Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Friday that Beijing understands the plane now on Hainan is US property. "It's a matter now of the procedures that we have to go through to have the aircraft returned," he said.
RSS