Crew Was Sure All Would Perish in Wild Plunge

The returning crew members of a U.S. Navy spy plane, touching down in the United States after 11 days in Chinese detention, Thursday gave their families heart-stopping accounts of how they nearly ditched their plane in the South China Sea after colliding with a Chinese jet fighter.

Providing new details about the harrowing aftermath of the April 1 incident, crew members told relatives that they were convinced they would die after the EP-3 surveillance plane plunged thousands of feet in seconds. At one point, they frantically strapped on parachutes in hopes that they could leap free.

But “the way [the plane] was spinning, there was no way they could get out,” James Coursen, the father of Navy Cryptologic Technician Operator 1st Class Shawn Coursen, said in an interview after talking to his son. “It was chaos in there. They thought they were all going to die.”

The crew members also spoke with pride of how much surveillance equipment and data they were able to destroy before landing in China.

The plane, which was conducting a routine military surveillance flight off China’s southern coast at the time of the collision, limped to Lingshui military air base on nearby Hainan island. After Navy Lt. Shane Osborn, the pilot, landed the aircraft, it was immediately surrounded by Chinese soldiers who demanded that crew members leave the plane at once. The 24 Americans were taken into custody and detained until early Thursday.

After an agreement was reached between the U.S. and Chinese governments, the crew was flown to Guam, then taken on to Honolulu for a hero’s welcome at Hickam Air Force Base.

With the crew freed, President Bush spoke harshly Thursday of what the Chinese had done and criticized the Beijing government’s record on trade, human rights and religious freedom.

Appearing in the White House Rose Garden, Bush said “the kind of incident we have just been through does not advance a constructive relationship between our countries.”

He said that, in a meeting between representatives of the two nations Wednesday to discuss the collision, he would direct U.S. officials “to ask the tough questions about China’s recent practice of challenging United States aircraft operating legally in international airspace.”

Reconnaissance flights, he said, “are a part of a comprehensive national security strategy that helps maintain peace and stability in our world.”

During the crew’s stop in Guam earlier Thursday, each member was given a cell phone and wasted no time calling family and friends to exchange messages of love and relief, and to describe their ordeal.

The American crew said the four-engine EP-3 was knocked into a dive after the Chinese F-8 fighter, flying close beneath it, struck its tail against the propeller of the engine on the outside of the left wing, according to U.S. officials who have knowledge of the crew’s reports.

The collision caused the EP-3 to roll sharply to the left and nearly turned it over at one point, said the officials, who requested anonymity.

The collision damaged the spy plane’s flaps, which are control surfaces on the rear edges of the wings that can increase lift and allow the aircraft to fly more slowly, the officials said. One engine was put out of commission, two propellers were damaged and the nose cone, which held important instruments, was sheared off.

“My son said the crew did not know whether they were going to live or die; many started praying to themselves,” said Ramon Mercado Sr. of Corona, father of Navy Aviation Electronics Technician 2nd Class Ramon Mercado Jr. “It was all very frightening.”

But then, the elder Mercado said, “they realized they were going to come out alive and they all cheered a little bit.”

“My son said that every day they were in captivity they thanked the pilot for getting them down and saving their lives,” James Coursen said.

The crew considered ditching--landing the plane in the water--after the pilot regained control, the family members said, but feared that the damage might prevent them from slowing the aircraft enough to bring it down safely. The EP-3 had lost both airspeed indicators and, with the other damage, “everything you know about that aircraft has changed--you can’t play with it to see how slow it will go,” said John W. Comerford of Palos Verdes Estates, the father of Navy Lt. j.g. John Comerford and himself a pilot.

“They probably would have had to ditch in excess of 200 knots, which would have been suicide,” said the elder Comerford. Ditching “would have been a very poor choice” because of the plane’s limited capabilities, he said. “You’re in a horrible situation, and you’ve got to get it down somewhere to save everyone.”

Diane Osborn of Norfolk, Neb., said her son, the pilot and mission commander, struggled to bring the plane in. Just landing the plane “took every bit of strength he had,” she told MSNBC television.

“Once he got control and realized he could fly the plane, they had to decide where to go,” Comerford said. “They knew they were about 70 miles from this airport--so that’s where they decided to go.”

But family members reported that the crew members felt triumphant that in the roughly 15 minutes it took to reach Hainan island they had been able to destroy vital classified material and hardware that the plane was carrying.

Jeoff Hanser of Billings, Mont., said his brother, Jason, a Navy cryptologic technician 2nd class, told of immediately beginning to destroy secret documents and equipment.

“He said they were breaking things, scrambling things and even throwing things overboard,” Hanser said. “He told us he was very proud that the Chinese didn’t get any of the good stuff. ‘No way we were going to let that happen.’ He said that they all just did what they were trained to do.”

Darlene Edmunds of Davis, Calif., said her ex-husband, Navy Cryptologic Technician Interpretive 1st Class Josef Edmunds, had a premonition that the crew was headed for trouble. “He said that for several weeks, he felt his life was in danger” as the Chinese pilots grew bolder and flew closer to the slow-moving spy plane during missions, she said.

Wayne Westbrook of Rock Creek, Ohio, father of Navy Aviation Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class Wendy Westbrook, said his daughter talked of being in the cockpit during the collision and of the harrowing minutes before the emergency landing.

“She said there was no panic, no alarm, just everybody doing what they’d been trained to do,” he said. “She said, ‘There was no time to be afraid, Dad.’ ”

Family members said they received calls when their loved ones reached Guam and, later, Hawaii. Many are accepting the Navy’s invitation to travel, at the military’s expense, to the crew’s home base at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in Washington state for a reunion Saturday.

“First thing I want to ask him is whether real Chinese food is better than California Chinese food,” joked Mercado.

Coursen said his son “was glad to be alive” and had been treated well. But, he added, “he said he was tired of eating rice.”

“He’s already talking about the next mission he’s going on,” said Hanser of his brother, Jason. “He said, ‘No way am I going to be scared off.’ ”

Liz Borland said, “Until I can hug my son [Navy Cryptologic Technician Seaman Bradford Borland], this nightmare won’t really be over.”

The crew members arrived at Hickam to the strains of “God Bless America” and to the cheers and whistles of a military crowd, emerged from an Air Force C-17 and crossed a red-tile “carpet.”

“We’re definitely happy to be back,” said Osborn, ducking his head with a shy smile to acknowledge the applause. “We obviously have to get some business taken care of, and I’d like to start that process now so we can get home.”

The welcome at Hickam was closed to the public and kept deliberately low-key because, according to officials, the crew’s mission won’t be considered complete until the two-day debriefing is complete late today. Officials want a detailed record of what happened to the crew before memories begin to fade, they said.

Shortly before Bush’s statement in the Rose Garden on Thursday, the president spoke by telephone to Osborn.

“Welcome home,” Bush said. “We appreciate you. You did your duty. You represent the best of America.”

“As an old F-102 pilot,” he added, “let me tell you, Shane, you did a heckuva job bringing that aircraft down. You made your country proud.”

Osborn replied, “Thank you for getting us here.”

The Chinese government, meanwhile, insisted that it had received the apology it had demanded and said it intended to continue pressing the United States on the issues raised by the incident.

“The incident has not been fully settled. We hope that the U.S. side will adopt a serious attitude toward China’s standpoint on the incident and handle it properly,” President Jiang Zemin, who is on a 12-day tour of Latin America, was quoted as saying by the state-run New China News Agency.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said China also might want to discuss compensation for its pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Wang Wei, who has been missing since the collision.

In Beijing, Premier Zhu Rongji said during a meeting with U.N. General Assembly President Harri Holkeri of Finland that “all responsibilities for the incident lie with the U.S. side,” according to the news agency.

State media declared that a letter sent by the Bush administration saying that Washington was “very sorry” for the loss of the Chinese pilot was the apology sought by Beijing.

“The United States Finally Apologizes!” said the state-run Beijing Morning Post.

The U.S. letter did not refer to an apology and repeated the American position that the collision was an accident. It also said that Washington was “very sorry” the U.S. plane made an emergency landing afterward without advance permission.

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Staff writer Cimons reported from Washington, staff writer Perry from San Diego and special correspondent Essoyan from Honolulu. Staff writer Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Debriefing

Before the 24 crew members of the EP-3 can reunite with their families on Saturday they must first recreate details of the accident during two days of debriefing at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu. Debriefers also will ascertain what the crew monitored aboard the aircraft and what information was destroyed.

1. Repatriation team: A team of 13, including psychologists, medical doctors and intelligence officers, began the debriefing process on board a 737 to Hawaii. The team attempts to capture crew members’ memories about the incident while their recollections are still fresh.

2. Technical debriefing: Includes about 12 groups of debriefers, possibly including experts in:

* Air defense

* Military and naval intelligence

* Information technology

* Radar and plane close-encounters

* Psychological experts to determine what information the Chinese received from crew members during their 12 days on Hainan island.

3. Medical/Psychological Exam: Crew members will meet with a physician for a routine exam that could last an hour to an hour and a half. A psychiatrist will also be available to provide support to the crew.

Sources: U.S. Pacific Command; Assn. of Former Intelligence Officers. Researched by SUNNY KAPLAN / Los Angeles Times