High drama draws to discreet finale as detainees leave Hainan

As was only appropriate for a group of spies, the 24 detained crew members of the US EP-3E Aries II made a quiet departure from Haikou early yesterday morning.

At about 6am the team left the Southern Air Force No 1 Guesthouse, where they had been detained since early last week, in buses with black-tinted windows. They were driven directly to Haikou's Meilan International Airport where a chartered Continental Airlines passenger jet, which had just flown in from Guam, was waiting.

The jet was parked at the southern end of Meilan's runway about a kilometre from the airport's main terminal, where two dozen journalists had assembled to watch the departure.

Reporters staked out in marshland just beyond the airport's southern perimeter were unable to get a good view and were eventually chased away by police. TV camera lights could be seen on the aircraft, evidence that China Central Television crews had been allowed on board to document the departure.

The jet left Chinese soil at 7.29am.

The departure marked the end of a remarkable 12-hour period, which began at 7pm on Wednesday evening with an announcement from the Chinese Government, read in Haikou by Hainan Foreign Affairs Office director Chen Ci, that it had agreed to release the crew on 'humanitarian considerations . . . after completing the necessary procedures'.

US diplomats sent to Haikou had readied 24 blank passports in preparation for their release.

But at a meeting with Hainan Foreign Affairs Office officials at 10pm on Wednesday night, US military attache Brigadier-General Neal Sealock's request to brief the crew on their departure arrangements was denied.

At midnight the US diplomatic team gave up and advised waiting journalists 'to go to bed'.

'This is the end-game and we don't want to screw it up,' one US diplomat said. 'We're just following their rules.'

Just hours later, however, General Sealock was summoned to escort the aircrew to Meilan airport.

TOM13XGET