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Mid-Air Collision Over The South China Sea Costs 24 CrewAPRIL 1, 2001 · 10:45
An American surveillance aircraft and a Chinese fighter collided in international airspace 440 miles from the Chinese coast. Eleven Americans were killed. What happened next took nearly three weeks to resolve and involved, at one point, eleven American aircraft flying toward a Chinese airport in daylight.
THE COLLISION SITE, FROM ABOVE. IT IS AN OCEAN. THAT IS THE WHOLE STORY.
( FILE PHOTO )
THE COLLISION SITE, FROM ABOVE. IT IS AN OCEAN. THAT IS THE WHOLE STORY.
WASHINGTON, April 1 -- An American EP-3 surveillance aircraft collided with a Chinese F-8 fighter over the South China Sea on Saturday, killing all eleven aboard the American aircraft and the Chinese pilot. The two aircraft came apart in mid-air.
The American government has demanded an apology and the Chinese government has expressed regret, which are not the same word, and this distinction has done more work in the past week than any of the words actually used in it.
The two governments have agreed on the sequence of events: the Chinese pilot moved toward the American aircraft, and the American aircraft did not move. Neither has published the transcript. A piece of the American aircraft is currently on display in a Chinese museum.
Corrections: none so far. Published items are never corrected, they are replaced,
and the replacement keeps the original in the archive, where nobody will look for it.
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