The Chinese ambassador to the U.S. has already admitted, on CNN, that the plane was 65 miles inside international airspace when the incident occurred.
Lord, this is so painful for me.
See my credentials in this thread… Can’t seem to make this link work, but it’s “the china problem” thread, this forum.
Believe me, I know what I’m talking about here.
Bunnyhurt, I don’t even want to know where you’re getting your info. While I appreciate your skepticism, out of all these posts, yours seems to me the most ignorant. Special flares? Deliberate mid-air collisions? Where are you getting this from? Are you an Oliver Stone JFK believer? Gimme a break. And your theory of the pilot surviving… well, he may be alive, but I think you’re saying he landed fat, dumb, and happy back in China after ramming our plane? Oh, god, I can’t believe there’re people like you in the world. Did you see the damage inflicted in the EP-3? You think the other aircraft didn’t sustain any damage?
Who’s the “they” in “they train the crews…” Do you know who trains crews in Emergency Destruct Drills? THE CREWS THEMSELVES. There’s guidance in the form of a plan, but the crews themselves must figure out how to apply it to what’s carried on board. Do you have any idea how much there is to destroy? I do. I’ve been there. I’ve initiated, managed, and evaluated these drills. There’s a fair amount of stuff to do, and believe me, it takes a lot more than “a matter of minutes.” 100% worthless scrap metal?
If this were the Pit, this response would be a bit different. As it is, all I can say is Wake the heck up, dude.
For those of you who insist that we have no right to collect in international airspace… where in the world is this coming from? So, they own all electromagnetic waves emanating from their country? Are you saying our satellites are immoral? What’s the difference? If I stand at 12.5 miles off their coast, in international waters, and look at China, is that bad? After all, I’m collecting electromagnetic waves emanating from there. They’re coming into my eyeball and being processed by my brain. They’re just at a different frequency than the waves the EP-3 was interested in. And you think the US would have a hard time if a foreign plane was spying on us? Do you realize a Russian fighter buzzed one of our carriers in the Sea of Japan? Took pictures and everything. What did we do? Not much. Did we shoot it down? No. Did we have a cow, and protest? Not really. We got burned, and that was pretty much the end of it. Sure, we’d have some heartache if someone was loitering off our coast, looking into our country. But this happens. We can’t stop it and all we can do is monitor the platform… maybe intercept it if it’s airborne, or put a ship near it if it’s a surface or subsurface vessel.
For those of you not convinced the accident actually occurred in international airspace, Come on! The PRC, to my knowledge, never really contended this issue. They contend that we broke their airspace on the way to the airfield after the collision, and that we didn’t file proper procedures (calling Mayday and declaring an Emergency aren’t, to them, “proper procedures.”) before entering PRC airspace, thus violating it.
I’m still amazed that anyone can side with these thugs. They’re totally irrational! And people actually believe them!
Sorry if I seem mean or anything, but some of these guys being held are my friends, and I have a hard time understanding why the nation isn’t completely pissed off at China for holding them.
So if anyone’s pissed at my post, fine, but at least understand why this topic upsets me.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Thanks, Telemark. That’s very interesting, and given the desperation and suicidal heroism of the Soviets during their “Great Patriotic War” it sounds plausible. But surely they performed this maneouver fully aware of the extreme danger to their lives and the absolute certainty of losing their planes.
Bunnyhurt, assuming Telemark’s facts are good, it’s safe to say the Soviets fighter pilots attempted to ram the German planes because they had run out of ammo, and not out of a desire to avoid an act of war.
Wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG. China is not communist. It is a military dicatorship. In a communistic society, there is no government, as it is obsolete. China is far from this.
Second quote: Communism is not repulsive. Dictatorships are. Communism stresses that by working for the greater good, you are able to express your freedoms more easily. Others help you, just as you help them.
Study yer books!
It worked so well in the Soviet Union and North Korea. You want us to read our books? Crack open a history book yourself and then come and tell me communism isn’t repulsive.
Marc
what a heated debate! It’s now Commie versus Capitalist, or Evil versus Good. I hardly think it’s that simple.
From what I understand the US spy plane:
a) is able to “suck” in an extremely wide range of sensitive information
b) had to be chased out of Chinese aerospace a number of times in the past
Given these two items, I am not inclined to accept the side of the story that places the US spy plane as victim.
Firstly, I don’t think it’s stated anywhere that a plane that lands in foreign territory enjoys immunity or sovereignty. I certainly was not able to find such a reference, and this seems something that the US claims but is not able to back up. Please correct me if I got this wrong.
Secondly a spy is a spy, and a spy plane is a spy plane. How nations deal with spies is up to the governments of those nations, and I doubt there is any comprehensive agreement on the treatment of spies, nor even a “right” or “good” way to do it.
Thirdly, we can only speculate as to what exactly happened. For example, I would not be surprised to find out that the spy plane was in Chinese aerospace at some point during its mission. We don’t know what happened yet, and we may never know.
Let’s stop demonizing the Chinese, at least until the truth comes out. The US has a pretty bad track record of “playing fair”, and it’s funny to hear all these calls for fairness and privileged treatment for what are essentially spies involved in the destruction of Chinese hardware and loss of Chinese life.
On the other hand, I sincerely hope the servicemen are returned home safe and sound, and I’m not even an American–just someone who appreciates human life, no matter where it comes from or what form of government it spawned under.
You don’t impress me for some reason, maybe it’s your insistence to know the Chinese mind when it was reported that they were flying closer and closer to these aircraft in the last year. Or maybe its because you equate the Soviets taking pictures of a ship in the Japan Sea with flying along someone’s coastline. Is it fair to assume that the aircraft in question was or wasn’t receiving illegal spy transmissions from within China? Also, I never even came close to insisting that the Chinese pilot survived, but may have if their actions were the planned execution of a secret plot or mission. Ever hear of the gulf of Tonkin incident? There is always another story to be told twenty years later. By they way, how is millions of dollars of computer and transmission equipment destroyed on aircraft? With a hammer? Acid? Or is this hardware even top secret?
Also, you failed to impress me with your logic that just because alot of damage was done, that this collision was not planned, how the hell would you know? They would love to see the plane fall from the sky regardless, even into the ocean, but can’t shoot it down. Have you forgotten the incident in France at the debut airshow of the new supersonic Russian competitor to the Concorde? It involved a French military jet suddenly appearing in the clouds basically causing the Russian plane to dive to avoid a crash, which it could not recover from, killing the crew. We could say they never intended to sink the Russian plane, which was a spy-gathered copy of the Concorde, but the French are known not to play the fairest, and they never admitted to the incident.
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Do you mean the specific spy plane that Chine currently has? Do you have any evidence that it did in fact violate Chinese air space?
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What difference does it make if it is designed to “suck” up a lot of information?
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It is a big slow plane with big US Navy designations all over it. So far as I know it had no stealth capabilities so it being out there wasn’t exactly a big secret. They are only gathering information that they can observe from miles and miles away. That hardly makes them guilty of espionage in my book.
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Oh ok, so you don’t know if this plane violated Chinese space you were just shooting from your hip. I’d be surprised if this plane violated Chinese air space simply because there’s no reason for them to do so. As you said they have systems designed to “suck” information so why would they need to get so close?
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Truth, a Chinese fighter and a large slow moving American plane collided in mid-air. Can you think of a plausable reason why the American pilot would be resonsible? And who needs to demonize the CHinese government? They’ve been doing a great job of that for the past 50 years.
Marc
I don’t think that’s it. Flyboy’s qualifications speak for
themselves in this situation.
The Soviets routinely flew a few miles off the U.S. East
Coast throughout the Cold War. The U.S. routinely intercepted them,
just like the Chinese do to us.
It is fair to assume it was not.
Apparently a hammer is part of the drill, yes.
Maybe becuase he flies them for a living?
Oh, and Flyboy88: Many of us are pissed at China. Care
to comment on the speculation that the nose section was a
new ejectable FLIR?
You also failed to impress me. Apparently, you are trying to speak for the CIA. It is fairly assumed that we spy on China from within, but you lead us to believe that this plane cannot be used for such purposes. Why? Are you trying to bluff us? Is this information on your personal webpage somewhere?
These cat and mouse games are played between adversarial nations all the time, not only with airplanes but also with submarines and battleships. The US filed a number of complaints with the Chinese for flying to close to our surveillance planes. It is as if some of you either do not know, or completely ignore these simple facts.
Are we to believe that the crew was on a suicide surveillance mission in Chinese airspace? Believe me the Chinese would have shot a known surveillance plane down, even quicker than the Russians shot down the suspected spy plane 007, if that plane was over Chinese territory. What is it more likely, the US pilot flew up to the Chinese jet and clipped it or the jet flew up too close to the US plane and was clipped?
I think one of three things happened, One the jet wanted to shadow the US plane, maybe to interfere with its surveillance in some way, got to close and caused the accident. Two, the jet attempted to escort the plane into Chinese airspace the US plane refused and when it turned to fly away the Chines plane refusing to yield caused the accident. Three, the pilot was the hot-dog pilot they say he was, he flew too close to the US plane and caused the accident.
We could learn more about the pilots and their mission if the government controlled TV and government controlled radio and government controlled newspapers, wasn’t in control of the parent’s expression of their thoughts and ideas. Of course the “military dicatorship[sic]” desirous of the people being able to express their freedoms more easily, has decided what is in the greater good and are firmly in control of what will be head and said.
Hey red_dragon60 suppose I don’t want to help you, all I want to do is play my music. What are you gonna do make me? How repulsive!
There are varying shades of “right” here.
We have the “right” to spy…er…eavesdrop on Chinese radio transmissions from international airspace.
As a matter of fact (if Dumbya has any balls at all) we ought to be running these prop planes right now.
The Chinese have the “right” to “escort” our eavesdrop planes in international airspace as well. Apparently, if the NYT source is to be believed, we have been equally aggressive to Soviet spy…eavesdrop planes during the Cold War.
Of course flying so close that our people could photograph not only the Chinese pilots’ faces but even a sign with the dead pilot’s e-mail is a violation of international air rules, but aside from formal protests, little can be done.
Except of course (Dumbya’s balls again) to escort these prop jobs with carrier based fighters, lighting up the Chinese jets if they get too close to our plane. Of course, then you have to consider whether the Chinese would run when our fighters lock them in as a target or overreact and blow our spy…eavesdrop plane out of the sky - despite being the last thing they would do in their lives.
But that’s hard ball power policy. We need the data and we’re going to get it.
The plane, the plane.
Of course the Chinese have the “right” to inspect the plane for airworthiness, safety etc. We’ve done the same with Cuban defectors and IIRC we took apart a brand new MiG-21 in Turkey when a Soviet defector flew into a NATO base back in the 1980s. (We did put it back together and sent it back.) Hopefully, our guys (and gals) trashed everything they could but what they didn’t is 100% compromised. It’s a risk we take - despite the ludicrous statement by Dumbya that the Chinese “avoid further tampering”.
Dumbya may have done more harm than good with his early outburst, transforming an incident into a crisis, provoking the Chinese gerontocratic dictators more than their pacemakers. Reagan or Bush the Elder would have left this incident to their Secretaries of State - once they had determined that our people were unhurt.
Come on - you can picture it…Ron and Nancy walking to the helicopter on the South Lawn…Sam Donaldson yelling “What about the plane and crew?”…Reagan answering - while walking away - “We’re doing everything we can”…a jaunty wave instead of the deer caught in headlights stare…and our crew back in 3 or 4 days.
The crew…
They’re ok and being treated well - though I doubt anyone will defect. We can expect the Chinese to release them shortly, save the pilot, as they have the “right” to conduct an inquest into the collision and probable death of their buckaroo pilot.
But if Dumbya will just let General er Secretary Powell handle this, even the pilot will be home soon and after a well-earned break, up in the air again on this no longer just a Chinese milk run.
That’s fine. Perhaps you are the only one that can do that.
Of course I do not pretend to speak for the CIA.
It does not, however, take a rocket scientist to figure out that the CIA/NSA is not
going to rely on some Navy plane for relaying intelligence back home.
We have perfectly good satellites for that kind of thing. These
satellites are not bound by bad weather, hydraulics leaks, etc. and are
on station 24 x 7, unlike a P-3.
Furthermore, I suspect you underestimate the parochial nature of the Navy’s intelligence gathering.
I’m reasonably sure that the Navy crew was far more interested in the new Chinese warship
than collecting info for the CIA. After all, the CIA has its own budget…
Study your forms of govewrnment. The Soviet Union was not communist. They were (at best) Stalinistic Socialists. At worst, another military dicatorship. North Korea is a military dictatorship. Communism never worked because it had never been tried. Even Lenin didn’t try communism. He tried Marxism.
Dev Null, the voice of reason.
Hah! This is funny, yet I’m honored to think the public could imagine the EP-3E contains such technology. Don’t I wish! I should qualify this, just to CMA: the last time I flew in these was spring/summer of last year. As of that time, we had no such fancy devices. I’m betting the nosecone came off due to the collision. Either that, or the PRC guys had the same question you did after the thing landed, and pried it off to find out!
Bunnyhurt, I salute your resolute grip on the insane in the face of overwhelming sanity. You apparently have this all figured out, so not much use in arguing with you. But I shall try one last time.
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My point of the FSU overfly of our carrier was to demonstrate a relatively relaxed attitude from our military in dealing with foreign espionage.
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“maybe it’s your insistence to know the Chinese mind when it was reported that they were flying closer and closer to these aircraft in the last year.” What does this mean? Do you understand the military hierarchy of the PRC? Do you understand how it’s regionalized? How little autonomy tactical military commands have? How a tactic based on your wild theory would have to come down from extremely high levels? No such master plan is evident, even taking into account decreasing intercept proximity. Here’s my take on it: Yes, they were flying closer. I’m honestly not sure if it’d be classified or not to say whether I’ve witnessed such intercepts, so I’ll just say that I have a strong, strong feeling about the typical intercept procedures these guys use against the EP-3. I’m betting, based on my experience, I know a lot more of their mind than you, Bunny, and can easily see this as an accident vs. anything intentional. Do you see your idea floating around the press? I haven’t. Why? Because it’s insane.
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“Is it fair to assume that the aircraft in question was or wasn’t receiving illegal spy transmissions from within China” Illegal? What does this mean? Read my last post (the long one). The aircraft was conducting SIGINT, which is Signals Intelligence. If I stand anywhere outside PRC territorial waters, I can do/monitor anything I want AND GUESS WHAT? IT’S PERFECTLY LEGAL.
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“By they way, how is millions of dollars of computer and transmission equipment destroyed on aircraft? With a hammer? Acid? Or is this hardware even top secret?” Dev Null was right (almost). It’s actually with an axe. Actually, it’s more hatchet-sized. And to further edify you, you need to consider the easiest way for an aircraft, at 8,000 ft MSL, to get rid of (non-electronic) classified information over the open ocean. The quickest, most efficient way. Use your imagination here. For classified info inside the machines, there is some switchology that allows you to zeroize the classified fills.
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I’m not going to even touch the Tonkin/French/Russian things you brought up. So irrelevant it’s not worth my time. “Also, I never even came close to insisting that the Chinese pilot survived, but may have if their actions were the planned execution of a secret plot or mission” Did I say you insisted? No, I said “And your theory of the pilot surviving… well, he may be alive…” Chill out. Defensive people make me nervous. See #2 above.
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“You also failed to impress me. Apparently, you are trying to speak for the CIA. It is fairly assumed that we spy on China from within, but you lead us to believe that this plane cannot be used for such purposes. Why? Are you trying to bluff us? Is this information on your personal webpage somewhere?” Why are you attacking Dev? And, what in the world does this mean? The EP-3 being used for internal spying? No, the post makes no sense. Will wait for something coherent before I shred it to pieces.
Abe… “chased out”??? We’ve never been “chased” anywhere. Interesting, if wrong, take on what’s being published in the media. We’ve been intercepted a number of times, but that’s routine, and the PRC has other reasons for intercepting us besides keeping an eye on us. It’s called practice in intercepting other aircraft. Believe me, they need it, as evidenced a number of times, most dramatically with the collision. “Secondly a spy is a spy, and a spy plane is a spy plane. How nations deal with spies is up to the governments of those nations” This goes for spies caught in the host nation, not military aircrew conducting routine operations in international airspace.
If I was president, and the CIA director blindly assumed this was all an accident and their pilot died as reported, without proof, I’d fire him on the spot as an incompetent idiot or liar, wouldn’t you? I mean, they have our plane, are demaning apologies, and we have nothing. (It sounds too similar to the underestimation and lack of initial planning towards the Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese preceding each of those wars, all with disasterous results–we shouldn’t underestimate those we don’t want to understand).
Oh yeah, the French Mirage “attack” of the imitation Concorde is SOOO irrelevent and against all military and aviation instinct. Someone forgot to tell French intelligence, afterall, they couldn’t shoot it down either and went for the most logical play. No one knew until much later. Geniuses they are.
Tell us again how Chinese counter-intelligence is so regional and disconnected from the top. If your analysis is the same as the CIA’s, America is in deep shit.
Also, if someone in the Chinese government wanted to make an incident (for whatever reason they forgot to broadcast or email you about), they would consider these spy planes to be a natural starting point (Refer to the film, “Thirteen Days” for a historical footnote). Many in the Chinese leadership, including the military, rely on hostilities and tensions to help them govern better while playing to patriotic sentiments. There are deep schisms inside Beijing and many are afraid of US intelligence getting too close to find out exactly where they are.
[hijack]
Fine, you want to split hairs then be my guest. Every place that has attempted to bring about the communist dream has brought nothing but pain and misery. Anyone who thinks that communism is a great form of government to try really needs their head examined.
Marc
[hijack]
Fine, you want to split hairs then be my guest. Every place that has attempted to bring about the communist dream has brought nothing but pain and misery. Anyone who thinks that communism is a great form of government to try really needs their head examined.
Marc
[/hijack]
We and china are supposed to be friendly and great trading partners.
Our “friendly” spy-plane was buzzed and crashed into by their “friendly” jet.
Now friendly diplomats are sorting everything out.