The United States yesterday stepped up a demand that Beijing release its detained surveillance plane, pointing to a 1993 incident in which a Chinese Eastern Airlines (CEA) aircraft made an emergency landing at a US military facility in Alaska.
Admiral Dennis Blair, Commander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Command, said the civilian aircraft was released immediately afterwards and demanded that China now hand back its US$80 million (HK$620 million) US navy EP-3E Aries II surveillance plane.
At a press briefing in Singapore, Admiral Blair said: 'We want it back and we want it back fast.'
The plane has been held on Hainan Island since April 1, when it was in collision with a Chinese fighter jet during a surveillance flight. The fighter jet crashed and the pilot, Wang Wei, was killed.
Foreign Ministry officials in Beijing said on Thursday that the stranded plane would not be allowed to fly out of Hainan under its own power. Diplomats from both sides are reportedly now discussing dismantling the aircraft and shipping it out.
Admiral Blair, who has headed the Pacific Command since February 1999, said the practice of US surveillance flights over the South China Sea was long established but 'the Chinese seem to act as if we have some new aggressive policy'.
The April 1993 emergency landing, which occurred after the CEA MD-11 was hit by what the US military described as 'violent turbulence', has not been cited by the US before in connection with the current stand-off.
