A huge Russian cargo plane on a mission to carry home a grounded US Navy surveillance plane arrived yesterday on the Chinese island of Hainan.
The Antonov 124 landed at the Lingshui air base, where the EP-3E Aries II has been parked since making an emergency landing April 1 after a midair collision with a Chinese fighter jet.
The AN-124 landed just after 11am under clear skies, the thunderous roar of its jet engines shattering the morning quiet. The plane arrived after a stopover at Kadena Air Base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa.
The Russian plane taxied to a stop about 100m from the EP-3E. Chinese F-8 jet fighters were parked at the other end of the runway.
Plans call for the EP-3E to be dismantled and loaded in pieces on two Antonovs. The US military has refused to say when the second plane is to arrive. Yesterday, the EP-3E was still intact, with no tools or machinery visible nearby.
The Navy went ahead with the flight yesterday despite reports that the Russian air cargo company is suspected of helping to evade a ban on weapons sales to Yugoslavia in 1999.
An official said on Thursday that the Navy knew of reports that Polyot Air Cargo Ltd had carried fighter jet parts to Yugoslavia. The country and neighboring former Yugoslav republics were under an arms embargo imposed by the UN in an attempt to quell a series of conflicts.
A Navy spokesman said Polyot was picked by the company hired to dismantle the EP-3E, Lockheed Martin, and is not on a list of firms barred from receiving US government business.
The Pentagon said it was forced to charter the Russian plane because China refused to let an American military aircraft land at Lingshui.
Security was tight yesterday at the base, which is surrounded by palm trees and rice paddies. Police blocked its driveway, and patrol cars drove up and down the main street that passes the site. Farmers in conical straw hats peered curiously at foreign reporters who had come to watch the Russian plane arrive.
There was no sign of an American team of diplomats and technicians sent to this tropical island in the South China Sea to prepare for the retrieval of the EP-3E.
Dismantling and loading the EP-3E onto the Russian planes is expected to take nearly a month. The Navy has said work should be finished by July 11.
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