To me, it sounds like the close approach of the fighter killed the wing's
lift, causing
the EP-3 to roll and hit the fighter. That would make both surviving pilots'
claims
to be essentially true - the American was flying straight and level, the EP-3
turned
and hit the fighter. I agree the "at-fault" party for the accident was the
fighter pilot.
In a message dated 4/22/01 6:20:43 PM, sjvan@csd.uwm.edu writes:
>On Sun, 22 Apr 2001, Spike Jones wrote:
>
>> previously that day. He apparently misjudged the
>> intercept and his vertical stabilizer struck the
>> outboard left propeller onthe EP-3. The U.S. plane
>> was in straight and level flight on autopilot at
>> the time. The fighter broke into two pieces and
>> plunged into the sea. TheU.S. plane rolled to the
>> left almost inverted, the pilot lost control and
>> they began to lose altitude. The Chinese fighter
>
>Interesting. The strike and the P-3 roll could have been near
>simultaneous, so the lost fighter's wingman may very well honestly believe
>that the roll occured first and the collision second...particularly if
>he
>wasn't paying very close attention and was a distance away.
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:59:51 MDT