From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Mon Apr 23 2001 - 20:48:19 MDT
"Ross A. Finlayson" wrote:
> I don't understand why the plane landed in China. If it was still flying, I
> wonder how far it was to friendly airspace and a friendly airport, if the
> Chinese would not acknowledge the landing signals. My interpretation would be
> that they would land because they were concerned about the Chinese pilot, and
> thought that landing would be friendly.
I saw a map of the area. The Chinese airport was a short distance to
the north; their home base (and, from the looks of it, the nearest
non-Chinese piece of dirt) was a much longer distance to the northwest.
I suspect it was "land in China or land in the sea". The Chinese would
be able to salvage it from the sea; destroying the sensitive equipment
would have been riskier, and possibly less certain, while the plane was
sinking.
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