Article

2003-09-12 East Asia

EP-3 Spy plane secrets compromised by Chinese

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Posted by ----------<<<<- 2003-09-12 9:56:31 AM|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Two questions--
1.--Don't crews have something akin to a thermite grenade or any flammable liquids to help destroy such equipment and material before it can be captured?
2.--Is this the first instance of the Chinese getting US military secrets without going through the Clintons?

Posted by Dar 2003-9-12 12:58:03 PM|| [http://users.stargate.net/~dsteckel/] 2003-9-12 12:58:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 "Don't crews have something akin to a thermite grenade or any flammable liquids to help destroy such equipment and material before it can be captured?"
For land based equipment, yes. A guy I used to work with told me they had thermite blocks on equipment racks in case they were over-run(Don't ask what or where). But, never, never on a aircraft. Too big a risk of accidental ignition.

Posted by Steve 2003-9-12 1:10:35 PM|| 2003-9-12 1:10:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 I thought we knew that already. I seem to remember reading about it. Not what we lost, but that they weren't able to destroy everything.

They did one hell of a job trying, tho.

And China still came to Kimmee's party.

Posted by Anonymous 2003-9-12 2:39:21 PM|| 2003-9-12 2:39:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Oh, yeah. Famous Chinese fighter pilot Wong Way's claim to fame. Hope the fish enjoyed their Chinese food.

Posted by tu3031 2003-9-12 4:47:03 PM|| 2003-9-12 4:47:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 Could it be that the Chinese were getting the military secrets that... err.. they were supposed to get?

Posted by True German Ally 2003-9-12 5:44:37 PM|| 2003-9-12 5:44:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 I don't think so. We've been flying this sort of mission for better than 50 years. The Russians used to fly up and down our coasts, too, and probably others I don't know about. All flights are in international waters, and for the number of flights flown there have been only the smallest number of incidents. The Chinese broke the rules and they've probably been expecting one of their platforms to "have an accident" ever since.

And the amount of loss probably wasn't that enormous. We don't use thermite on planes, but we do use things like water-soluble paper and modularized equipment that gives you nothing when one of the modules has been dropped overboard.

Posted by Fred 2003-9-12 9:26:47 PM|| 2003-9-12 9:26:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 TGA! Shame on you! Do you believe we'd actually risk people to slip the Chinese some bad data? No, a thousand times no! The US doesn't act that way. Now, I DO know of a couple of instances where certain "packages" went astray, and it caused a certain group to waste more than seven years trying to do the impossible, but that was 'somewhere else', he, he he...

Posted by Old Patriot 2003-9-12 9:30:21 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm] 2003-9-12 9:30:21 PM|| Front Page Top

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