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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (10578)	4/5/2001 3:10:54 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

By the way, if it is not too nosy, from what department did you retire?

To: Lane3 who wrote (10578)	4/5/2001 4:14:06 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Change of topic, picked you as recipient not because it has any relationship to your posts but because you're retired and have time to read it! <bg> This is the best explanation I have read for how the accident might indeed have been a pure accident, though based on some pretty careless flying. An unstable jet at that speed and a prop vortex he may not have been expecting. U.S. says Chinese pilot caused collision By RICHARD SALE, Terrorism Correspondent U.S. Administration officials said Wednesday they believe the pilot of the Chinese F-8 fighter committed a fatal error that caused the March 31 collision between his aircraft and a U.S. Navy spy plane. "We can't say yet for sure until we talk to the crew, but we think it was pilot error," said one U.S. defense official. One U.S. official said that one reason the crew of the Navy plane is being held incommunicado might have to do with their being able to shed light on the cause of the crash. The Navy EP-3 II Aires, an electronic warfare plane and part of a Navy/National security Agency program whose primary mission is to monitor signals from military ships, air fields, and air defense installations deep inside China, collided with a pursuing Chinese F-8 fighter Sunday. The American plane made an emergency landing at Hainan Island in the South China Sea with damage to the nose, an engine and the underbody of the plane. The F-8 fighter plunged into the sea. The pilot is still missing. But U.S. administration officials believe that the tail of the F-8 was knocked off the aircraft when it was sucked into the propellers of the larger U.S. Navy plane. The EP-3 has a crew of 24, weighs several tons, and is powered by four propeller-driven engines, which caused the crash, these officials said. Two administration officials told United Press International that a propeller driven engine creates a vortex, or vacuum, in front of the plane that "exhausts to the rear," in the words of one expert. "It's called the Venturi movement," said an administration official. The speed of the EP-3 was only between 250 to 300 knots, and the fighter slowed to try and get in close to the U.S. aircraft. "This means that all its flaps were down, all of its control surfaces were being used to create drag," said one expert familiar with both craft. A U.S. defense official added, "At that speed, the F-8 is almost out of control." Another administration official agreed: "At a speed as slow as that the F-8 is inherently unstable," he said. The F-8 was "aggressively getting close to the Navy plane, flying alongside, trying to match its speed." But when the fighter tried to power up and dive under the wing, it hit the vortex and was sucked back and lost its tail. "I think it's a real possibility that the fighter's tail got cut in two by the prop," the official said. Having suffered damage to an engine and a prop, the American EP-3 would have begun to wobble badly, and it would have shut down the engine and tired to feather the prop. Meanwhile, the pilot of the fighter would have ejected into the sea. "The Chinese pilot, when he slowed, was really at the edge of the envelope for his plane," a U.S. defense official said. The Navy owns only a dozen or so of the EP-3s. They are crammed with the latest, most sophisticated code-breaking and eavesdropping equipment that an intercept an enormous variety of electronic emissions from a target country. -- Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved. --