U.S. Navy Plane Takes ‘Evasive Action’ to Avoid Chinese Fighter Jet
When the planes were only a few hundred feet apart, one of the Chinese planes slowed down
and flew directly in front of the Navy plane, prompting the American pilot to take what Captain Davis described as "evasive action." He said the episode took place in international airspace between the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea, west of the Korean Peninsula.
By HELENE COOPERJULY 24, 2017
WASHINGTON — A United States Navy spy plane had to take evasive action to avoid crashing into a Chinese fighter jet
that suddenly pulled up in front of the American plane in contested skies above the East China Sea on Sunday, the Pentagon said.
"There are intercepts that occur in international airspace regularly,
and the vast majority of them are conducted in a safe manner." He called Sunday’s encounter "the exception, not the norm."’ During last year’s presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump labeled President Barack Obama as weak in defending international waters off the coast of China, where Beijing has engaged in a sharp military buildup to reclaim land, install runways and haul equipment onto reefs and shoals it claims as its own.
A number of small islands in the East China Sea are claimed simultaneously by China, Japan and Taiwan, and Beijing has made a policy of disputing the presence of American spy planes
that come near disputed islands there as well as those in the South China Sea.
Two Chinese fighter planes intercepted the Navy EP-3 surveillance plane, approaching at high speeds from beneath the American plane, said Capt.
Defense officials said that the United States has complained about the episode to Beijing,
but Captain Davis also appeared to take pains to avoid escalating the issue.
American ships and planes often traverse those seas
and skies to exercise what the Pentagon has called their right to move through international airspace and waters.
