*EUR402 04/05/01
Defense Department Report, Thursday, April 5
(U.S.-China air accident) (740)

DEFENSE SPOKESMAN SAYS U.S.-CHINESE COLLISION WAS AN ACCIDENT

Navy Rear Admiral Craig Quigley says the April 1 U.S.-Chinese aircraft collision "was an accident" and needs to be treated as such by the two nations.

The accident resulted in the apparent crash of a Chinese jet fighter and the emergency landing of a seriously damaged U.S. reconnaissance aircraft on Chinese soil. The U.S. EP-3E Aires II aircraft is a four-engine turbo-prop designed to collect electronic signals.

The American crew of 24 (22 Naval personnel, one Marine and one Air Force specialist) was unhurt, but the crew members have not yet been able to contact their families or return home. The Americans were conducting what the Navy has described as a routine military surveillance mission in international air space over the South China Sea and were abiding by international law and custom.

"I don't think that anybody took to the skies on the first of April in order to have a collision, and this is an accident and we need to treat it as such," the acting Defense Department spokesman said during his April 5 briefing.

Asked if there have been any U.S.-Chinese military-to-military contacts since the accident occurred, Quigley said "it's pretty much stuck to the diplomatic channels through the State Department."

He also said the U.S.-Chinese military-to-military program has not been suspended, but it will be reviewed after May under an arrangement which predates this accident. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen met on March 22 at the Pentagon and discussed, among other issues, the military-to-military exchange program.

No routine exchanges are currently scheduled under this program, Quigley said. One of the most recent exchanges occurred when the U.S. Naval 7th Fleet flag ship, the USS Blue Ridge, visited Shanghai March 23-26.

Quigley confirmed that the 1998 U.S.-Chinese Military Consultative Agreement remains in force between the two countries. He said it was designed to provide a framework to work out issues related to maritime and aviation rules.

Providing context for the April 1 accident, the acting spokesman said there have been a number of instances in recent months when Chinese aircraft "got too close" to U.S. reconnaissance aircraft flying in international air space off the coast of China, and the United States has made a point of letting the Chinese know about them.

A reporter asked Quigley what an American crew would have been permitted to tell the Chinese after the accident. "I don't think we have specific procedures in place for a circumstance such as this," he said. What about the traditional name, rank and serial number information, the reporter asked? Such strictures would only apply to prisoners of war, he said, "and that's simply not the circumstance we have here."

The Pentagon official said it should not be a surprise to anyone that the Chinese might want to interview crew members, but there has been no indication that the crew members have been either mistreated in any way or interrogated, as one reporter suggested.

U.S. officials are seeking more frequent access to the American crew, Quigley said, "to be followed very quickly by their release." It is time for them to come home, he said. The acting spokesman expressed hope that the American service men and women would be released as soon as possible, noting that this depends on diplomatic progress.

He said an EP-3 maritime patrol aircraft has never ditched at sea. Given the reported damage to this particular airframe, Quigley said it took considerable airmanship on the part of the pilot to bring the aircraft in for a safe landing.

Asked about the extent to which the crew would have been able to disable classified equipment or material onboard the EP-3, he said, "You would expect a well-trained crew to carry out their training and the emergency destruct procedures as best they could, given the limited time frame available to them."

Quigley was asked if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's April 4 statement -- saying he hopes and expects that the good treatment of the crew will continue -- had sounded the right tone. He said it isn't to anyone's advantage "to be too shrill in their comments at this point. This is a time for diplomacy."

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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