Hamilton is a second-year international economics student.
By Hudson Hamilton
Doug Lief should get his facts straight before he proposes that
our government has engaged in some sort of cover-up operation over
the collision of a US EP-3 plane and a Chinese fighter jet on April
1 (“Fighting Forces a Fighting
Farce,” Viewpoint, April 16). If he had watched Secretary
of Defense Rumsfeld’s presentation to the news media
following the return of the 24 U.S. military detainees last week,
he would have a much better understanding of the events that led to
the midair collision.
Our EP-3 plane, on autopilot, flying a course that U.S.
reconnaissance planes have used literally hundreds of times over
the past three decades (a course obviously in international
airspace), was intercepted by two Chinese jet fighters. This in
itself was quite normal. What was not normal was the harassing,
“Top Gun”-like flying of the now-deceased Chinese pilot
Wang Wei that followed.
The Chinese pilot repeatedly “thumped” our EP-3
plane, flying underneath the belly of the EP-3 and then rising up
right in front of its nose, jarring it with turbulence. According
to pilot testimony, the first thump was approximately five feet
away from the nose, the second was approximately three feet,and the
third thump ““ the collision. The vertical stabilizer of the
Chinese jet collided with the nose of the EP-3, sending out a shard
of metal that crippled one of the propellers of the EP-3, and
another shard that pierced the skin of the U.S. plane.
In the moments that followed, the plane fell from an altitude of
22,500 feet to 15,000 feet, and the crew rushed for the parachutes.
The flight’s commander, Lieutenant Shane Osborn, decided to
attempt a landing rather than risk a parachute evacuation into the
Pacific Ocean nearly three miles below. This was especially heroic
because none of the plane’s instruments survived the
collision; Osborn had to fly blind. He made 25-30 Mayday calls, but
admittedly the noise in the cabin was too loud (due to the pierced
skin of the plane) for him to hear a response.
The remaining Chinese jet fighter escorted the damaged EP-3 to
nearby Lingshui airfield on Hainan Island, and during the
approximate 15-minute flight the U.S. crew destroyed as much
sensitive material as it could, literally taking axes to some of
the instruments on board.
These events are the testimony of the U.S. flight crew and I
believe them to be the closest to the truth that we can ascertain.
It should be noted that the Chinese version of the facts varies
from the U.S. version on several points. The Chinese continue to
claim, for one, that the U.S. plane suddenly swerved into the
Chinese fighter, causing the collision.
If the testimony of 24 U.S. military personnel is not convincing
enough, I suggest this: there is no pilot alive, especially a
trained U.S. military lieutenant, who would take his or her EP-3
off autopilot with a supersonic jet within spitting distance. In
addition, the lumbering EP-3 cannot “suddenly swerve”
because the plane is so large.
The reality of the situation is that the Chinese pilot nearly
killed 24 Americans. I think we all agree with President Bush in
that we are, in his words, “very sorry” for the loss of
life, but we are absolutely not at fault and should not take
responsibility.
Furthermore, this incident is by no account a U.S.
“foul-up,” for at no time did we violate international
law. Many countries fly reconnaissance missions, including China.
These should not be confused with spy missions, because the
difference between spy and reconnaissance is the difference between
covert and overt. The purpose of these missions is similar to
satellite surveillance: to find out what other countries are up
to.
If we made no attempt to gather this information, we would have
no advance knowledge of the military movements of foreign
countries. We want to know if China is collecting a massive missile
arsenal, and pointing it at Taiwan.
Lief’s unsupported claim of a government cover-up relies
on misinformation about the nature of the collision and is
therefore utterly ridiculous. The force of the impact was
relatively small because both planes were flying in the same
direction at nearly the same speed. The planes were not flying
hundreds of miles an hour as Lief mentions.
I realize that Lief is, as he puts it, “not a physics
major,” but the concept of relative speed is simple enough.
The force of the impact, though relatively small, was still enough
to cripple the Chinese jet, send it into the Pacific, severely
damage the EP-3 and cause the pilot to make an emergency
landing.
But it is still reasonable that our EP-3 survived such a
collision, for the massive EP-3 is so much larger than the nimble
Chinese fighter jet. The rest of Lief’s logic is so full of
holes that I hesitate to take it apart; I am sure every reader
would have done so already.
The only comment I will further make is this: to propose that
the U.S. mothball its entire military is to proclaim one’s
ignorance toward world affairs. A strong military is still a large
political bargaining chip in today’s international
relations.
If the United States were to lose its military prowess, the next
time an EP-3 is forced to land in China after a Chinese jet
collides with it, we will not be in a position to insist on the
return of our soldiers and plane.
I am afraid to guess how this scenario would play out, but I
will say that those “detainees” would be treated far
worse than the crew of the EP-3 was treated during their 11-day
detention in communist China earlier this month. Lack of political
power as a nation can translate into real suffering for real
people.