The US Navy is racing to salvage an F-35C fighter jet from the bottom of the South China Sea after it crashed on an aircraft carrier and plunged overboard — taking with it highly classified technology that would be a coup if China retrieved it first.
The F-35C crashed-landed on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson during routine operations on Monday, the navy said, adding that six sailors and the pilot, who ejected from the plane before it fell into the sea, were injured.
The most advanced US fighter, a stealth plane costing over US$100 million, is packed with highly classified technology and, if found, would be an intelligence boon for China, which claims almost all of the South China Sea as its own territory.
Photo: AFP
The Vinson was on a patrol intended to challenge that territorial claim and defend international freedom of navigation.
The F-35C is a version of the plane specially designed to operate from aircraft carriers.
Maritime experts have said that it could take a US salvage ship more than 10 days to reach the site of the crash, potentially giving Chinese submarines the opportunity to find it first.
“We’re certainly mindful of the value of an F-35 in every respect of what value means,” US Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby said. “As we continue to attempt recovery of the aircraft, we’re going to do it obviously with safety foremost in mind, but clearly our own national security interests.”
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian (趙立堅) said that Beijing had no ambitions to find the crashed plane.
“I noted relevant reports. This is not the first time that the US has an accident in the South China Sea,” Zhao said. “We have no interest in their aircraft. We urge the country concerned to do things that are conducive to regional peace and stability, rather than flex muscles in the region.”
In 2001, a heavily damaged US EP-3 surveillance plane made an emergency landing in China’s Hainan Province after a collision with a pursuing Chinese fighter plane.
The fighter crashed and its pilot was killed.
The 24 crew of the EP-3 were detained and interrogated by Chinese authorities before their release 10 days later.
The Chinese military stripped and examined the EP-3’s highly classified equipment and intelligence materials over several months — eventually giving back the plane in pieces.
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the
RSS