This is a big disgrace.
So was the pilot who flew our EP-3B Pappa Romeo 32 into chinese space and handed the plane, intact, to the chicoms.
Funny how things get distorted.
You have your facts wrong.
By janes.com editor Peter Felstead
An ‘inside’ account of the 1 April collision between a US Navy EP-3E surveillance aircraft and a Chinese J-8 interceptor over the South China Sea, recently unearthed by janes.com and corroborated by the US Navy, sheds new light on the event and further vindicates the actions of the EP-3 pilot, Lt Shane Osborn.
Combined with details released by the US Navy in press briefings, the new account - determined to be accurate by a source in the US Navy Office of Information - fully explains why Lt Osborn was forced to land at a Chinese base rather than ditching the aircraft along with its highly sensitive equipment fit.
Pooling the various accounts, a fuller picture of events can be described as follows:
Lt Osborn’s EP-3E (aircraft number PR-32) was flying straight and level, on autopilot and heading away from Hainan Island in international airspace when the aircraft flown by pilot Wang Wei, one of two intercepting Chinese F-8 fighters, embarked on a series of harassing manoeuvres.
Having already made two passes on the EP-3, during which the Chinese jet came within 3-5 ft (0.9-1.5m) of the US four-engined turbo-prop, Wang Wei’s F-8 attempted to join the EP-3’s left wing for a third pass. At this point the EP-3 was doing 180 knots indicated air speed (KIAS) at an altitude of 22,000ft. Such an airspeed is uncomfortable for the F-8, approaching as it is the aircraft’s stall speed, leaving it much less manoeuvrable than at its normal cruising speed (an F-8’s design maximum level speed is 701kts).
On this third pass the Chinese pilot apparently miscalculated; either trying to stop closure or as a result of being too slow, the F-8’s right wing came up, hitting the EP-3’s No 1 propeller. The tailfin of the F-8 then drove the EP-3 port aileron full up, causing the US aircraft to snap-roll near inverted at three to four times the aircraft’s maximum roll rate using maximum aileron. Lt Osborn said his initial thought at this point was: “This guy just killed us.” He said he could look up through the aircraft’s windshield and see the ocean.
The nose of the F-8, meanwhile, had suffered an impact with the EP-3’s radome and the Chinese fighter had broken apart, although a parachute sighted by the EP-3 crew suggests that Wang Wei had managed to eject.
Meanwhile, the EP-3’s No 1 engine was flaming out due to the damage it had sustained, the radome had exploded due to the F-8 impact and the aircraft had depressurized. All airspeed and altimeter information had been lost due to damaged or lost probes, and the aircraft was vibrating violently due to damage to the No 1 and No 3 prop and the tailplane. The aircraft’s high-frequency radio wire had separated and was wrapped around the elevator trim.
By now, such was the extent of the damage to the EP-3 that it was taking maximum effort from both pilots to bring the aircraft level and still took ‘cherry lights’ (maximum power, or ‘red-lining’, on the three remaining engines) as well as full right aileron to initially hold the wings level. The EP-3 had rolled to a 130 degree angle of bank with 30 degrees nose down, finally recovering at an estimated altitude of 15,000ft but still having a 3,000ft/minute rate of descent despite maximum power.
The flight crew’s greatest concern at this point was separation of the No 1 propeller due to high vibration, despite their attempts to feather it. Lt Osborn apparently ordered the crew to prepare to bail out until he had finally recovered control. He then commanded the crew to prepare to ditch before assessing the extent of damage and the question of to what degree he could control the aircraft. The aircraft’s descent was finally arrested at around 8,000ft.
Having regained (relative) control of the aircraft, Lt Osborn and his flightcrew selected an emergency landing at the nearest field as their best possible option. This turned out to be Lingshui airbase on Hainan Island since the nearest allied fields were over 600 nautical miles away. The option of ditching, given the level of damage the aircraft had sustained and the tenuous degree of control maintained, would almost certainly have led to a number of the 24 crewmembers losing their lives.
On the approach to the airfield Lt Osborn made 10 to 15 guard (emergency VHF channel) calls outlining his intentions and predicament but was unable to hear any response due to air noise in the cockpit caused by holes in the pressure bulkhead. Being careful not to overfly land until he had Lingshui airfield in sight, Lt Osborn then overflew the runway at a perpendicular angle to check it was free of any obstacles and to make his intentions clear. He then turned the aircraft through 270 degrees and made a 170 knot ground speed, no flap, high gross weight (49,000kg), no trim, no KIAS landing with a damaged left aileron, damaged elevator, high drag due to the unfeathered No 1 propeller and full right aileron.
No surprise, then, that far from berating Lt Osborn and his crew for leaving a valuable surveillance asset in Chinese hands, his superior officers praised their airmanship, teamwork and conduct upon their safe return. Rear Admiral Michael L Holmes, Commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Force, Pacific, stated he was sure that the only course to have kept all the EP-3 crew alive was the course that Lt Osborn took. He also announced that Electronic Countermeasures Squadron One (VQ-1, from which aircraft PR-32 hails) had won this year’s Pacific Fleet ‘Battle E’ award.
Secretary of Defense Donald H Rumsfeld, speaking at a press conference after the repatriation of the EP-3 crew, stated that this incident was not the first time that a US reconnaissance flight had been subjected to “that type of aggressive contact from interceptors”, as footage released by the US Navy of an encounter on 24 January certainly proves. According to Secretary Rumsfeld, there were 44 intercepts of US reconnaissance flights by the Chinese air force in “recent months” prior to the 1 April collision: six involving Chinese interceptors coming within 30ft (9m) and two involving encounters within 10ft (3m).
Man, if that isn’t the truth! What a complete disgrace he was and so few Americans have been in the military, they couldn’t understand why there were people who were mortified by his lack of action.