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...EP-3E crew members winged their way back from China, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent them a congratulatory message. "You put your lives at risk," he told them, "so that the citizens of a grateful nation can live their lives in peace and freedom." Which raises a key question: Is it really necessary, with all the Pentagon's technological wizardry, to dispatch repeatedly two dozen of the nation's youngest and finest into the teeth of the Chinese dragon...
...episode began when a pair of F-8s scrambled from the Lingshui air base on Hainan Island and began shadowing the U.S. plane. Wang brushed twice within 5 ft. of the U.S. plane before he misjudged and flew his jet's tail through the EP-3E's left outboard propeller. "The first thing I thought," Osborn recalled Saturday, "was this guy just killed us." The F-8 broke in half, slicing off the EP-3E's nose and disabling the right wing's inner engine. Wang fell to his death along with the flaming wreckage. The U.S. plane plunged into...
...parachutes and began strapping them on as Osborn and his flight crew bellowed "Mayday!" into their mikes. It took about 5 min.--and up to 8,000 ft. of altitude--before Osborn could regain control. As the plane's unbalanced engines and sheared nose combined to shake the EP-3E violently, Osborn decided his best choice was to make for Lingshui, the closest airfield and one the F-8s had left only minutes before. Once the crew realized it was going to land in China, it began carrying out its "classified destruction plan," which parcels out the plane's most...
Accompanied by the surviving F-8, Osborn's plane flew toward the Chinese airstrip, staying over water as long as possible to avoid upsetting his surprised hosts. About 20 min. after the midair collision, the EP-3E made a hair-raising landing, unable to slow down because its braking wing flaps had been wrecked in the accident. A dislodged antenna had wrapped itself around the EP-3E's tail, further complicating the landing. Chinese troops quickly surrounded the prized plane, wielding weapons and demanding over bullhorns that the Americans abandon the craft. After a tense 15-min. standoff--during which...
...however, is in no mood right now to back away from manned flights along the Chinese coast. Such a move would be seen in Beijing as a victory for the hard-liners there who wanted to hang on to the EP-3E's 24-member crew...