Waiting game for US plane

Such accounts are impossible to verify, though sources say they "fit the pattern" of recent months.

But the immediate concern of US officials is contacting the crew, and protecting the sensitive equipment on the EP-3. It is not yet known whether the equipment on the plane was disabled or destroyed by the crew, who evidently shut down the electrical systems on the aircraft when it landed.

Some sources say that military personnel who fly sensitive reconnaissance missions are trained to quickly immobilize the computer systems and radar telemetry on the aircraft.

In the case of the forced landing of the EP-3, which suffered damage to its left wing and the outside (No. 1) engine of four turboprops, the flying crew would have been in an emergency crisis. But many of the 20 or so other personnel would have had 70 to 80 miles of flying time, plus time on the ground, to render the equipment useless.

"I think it's very unlikely that [the crew] would have been able to disable or destroy critical intelligence assets so completely that the Chinese could get nothing from it," says Dr. Walt. "If the Chinese have an opportunity to explore the plane at leisure, I'm sure they will find something."

The three US diplomats in Hainan are close enough to the Lingshui airbase so that "if they were given permission" they could contact the crew immediately. "Under the generally accepted norms of international law, our aircrew is immune to PRC jurisdiction,"Ambassador Prueher told reporters here yesterday.

"It is inexplicable and unacceptable and of grave concern to the most senior leaders in the US government that the aircrew has been held incommunicado for over 32 hours, and the Chinese so far have given us no explanation for holding the crew," Prueher said.

This incident comes at a delicate time. "There are so many things going on in the US-China relationship right now - from newly detained scholars, to human rights, to Taiwan arms sales," says Thomas Gold, China expert at the University of California, Berkeley. "On the one hand, the Chinese foreign ministry is trying to make nice with the Bush administration, which still does not have a working East Asia team. At the same time, the White House says publicly it wants to lean toward Japan, and be a competitor with China. We are seeing in this incident that part of the Chinese leadership that is taking this confrontational language, and approach seriously. They don't trust the US - on Taiwan, on anything."

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor

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