US investigators have concluded that China almost certainly gained access to classified information as a result of a mid-air collision between a Chinese fighter and a US spy plane, Jane's Defence Weekly says in its next edition.
An official US report, obtained by Jane's last week under the Freedom of Information Act, blamed the Chinese F-8 fighter for the April 2001 collision over the South China Sea off China's southern island province of Hainan.
The US report contradicted China's version of the accident which Beijing said was the EP-3E spy plane's fault. The collision killed the fighter pilot, Wang Wei, and soured Sino-US relations just after George W. Bush had become president.
China held the 24 crew members of the spy plane for 11 days and released them only after Washington said it was "very sorry" for the death of the Chinese pilot and the spy plane's landing on Hainan island without permission.
China returned the plane in July 2001.
The report said the spy plane crew had been unable to destroy all classified "materiel" on board in time before making their emergency landing.
Although not required at that point, the crew began to destroy classified material, the report said. Some was jettisoned out a hatch, and equipment was smashed with an ax and other hard objects such as metal containers. Upon landing at a military air base on Hainan Island some remaining classified papers were shredded.
"Compromise by the People's Republic of China of undestroyed classified materiel ... is highly probable and cannot be ruled out," the report said.
Reuters obtained on Friday an advance copy of the Jane's story, which did not say what classified materiel was compromised.
The crew had jettisoned some materiel from the starboard hatch, smashed equipment with an axe and other hard objects and upon landing, hand-shredded classified papers, the report said.
The Chinese military ordered the Americans off the plane and took control of it.
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