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U.S. Seeks Contact With Crew Being Held in China

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
c. The Associated Press

BEIJING (April 2) - The U.S. ambassador to China said Monday that American officials were being denied contact with the crew of a U.S. Navy surveillance plane, more than a day after a mid-air collision forced it to land in China. He called the delay ''inexplicable and unacceptable.''

Three American diplomats had arrived on Hainan island and were making their way to an air base where the EP-3 plane landed Sunday after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea, said Ambassador Joseph Prueher.

There was no indication if Chinese experts were trying to examine the EP-3's sophisticated monitoring equipment. American officials have insisted that the Chinese have no right to enter the aircraft.

Prueher said China had no legal basis to hold the 24 crew members. He complained that top Chinese officials were not taking part in official contacts.

''It is inexplicable and unacceptable and of grave concern to the most senior leaders in the United States government that the air crew has been held incommunicado for over 32 hours,'' Prueher said at a news conference. ''The Chinese so far have given us no explanation for holding this crew.''

A U.S. military spokesman in Hawaii, Army Lt. Col. Stephen Barger, refused to say whether the crew was supposed to destroy their equipment to keep it from falling into foreign hands.

The U.S. plane was standing empty at the military airfield where it landed in the town of Lingshui, said a Chinese sailor contacted by telephone at an adjacent naval facility. The sailor, who refused to give his name, said the crew had been moved to a military guesthouse.

A salvage ship from the Chinese mainland has joined a military search for the F-8 fighter, which China says crashed after the collision, according to a Hainan provincial maritime official. Chinese officials say the pilot is missing.

''They have not found anything,'' said the maritime official, who would give only his surname, Wang.

The United States has offered to help China search for its missing fighter.

The unarmed propeller-driven EP-3 took off from the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. It carried a crew of 22 Navy personnel, one Air Force officer and one Marine.

The EP-3 is about the size of a Boeing 737 commercial jetliner and carries equipment capable of monitoring radio, radar, telephone, e-mail and fax traffic, according to defense experts.

The U.S. military says the plane was on a routine surveillance flight in international airspace when two Chinese F-8 fighters intercepted it Sunday morning.

China has accused the U.S. pilot of intruding into Chinese air space and landing without permission. It says it has made ''proper arrangements'' for the crew.

However, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Beijing insisted the American pilot followed ''commonly accepted principles of international law'' when the plane made its emergency landing.

Chinese officials have assured the United States the crew is safe and uninjured, according to U.S. officials. The United States is asking China to expedite repairs and immediately return the plane and crew.

The incident comes at an uneasy time in relations between Washington and Beijing. China has been cool to the Bush administration's more cautious approach to relations with Beijing. It warned that ties could suffer over the announcement this month of new arms sales to Taiwan, the island China considers its own territory.

Washington also has protested China's recent detention of two scholars with links to the United States.

China has blamed the U.S. pilot for the collision. But the U.S. military said the cause is still under investigation. Adm. Dennis Blair, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, said the faster, more nimble Chinese plane had bumped into the larger, slower American plane.

Ordinary Chinese expressed anger and outrage. Few seemed to doubt the official explanation blaming the U.S. pilot. Discussion forums on Web sites were filled with demands to seize the plane and jail the crew.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement Sunday saying the U.S. plane veered suddenly into the Chinese jet. The U.S. side has ''total responsibility for this event,'' the ministry said. State television repeated the accusation on its noon broadcast Monday.

Preuher said he met Sunday night with a deputy Chinese foreign minister, Zhou Wenzhong. He said the Chinese ambassador to Washington, Yang Jiechi, had met with State Department officials.

Prueher said tensions would mount the longer the crew are held incommunicado.

''The downside potential if we do not resolve this well is fairly high because it can bleed over into some other areas,'' he said.

Officials at Hainan government offices and the Lingshui military airport refused to comment, saying they had been ordered not to give information to reporters.

At least six reporters for Hong Kong and foreign news organizations who traveled to Lingshui were detained by police and soldiers and ordered out of the area.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the collision occurred at 9:07 a.m. some 62 miles southeast of Hainan. U.S. officials said it happened 58 miles southeast of the island.

Speaking Sunday in Hawaii, U.S. commander Blair criticized what he called previous unsafe intercepts of American planes by Chinese fighters.

The U.S. military already had protested such behavior before the incident Sunday, but did not receive a satisfactory response, he said.

''It's not a normal practice to play bumpercars in the air,'' Blair said.

A U.S. military spokesman in Japan said the American aircraft enjoys sovereign immunity, which prohibits Chinese officials from searching, inspecting or detaining the plane without U.S. consent.