China analyzed US EP-3 from 2001 incident

PiSigma said:

the EP-3 was pretty much forced to land, and the moment it stopped an army squad that was waiting stormed it. (they weren't happy about lossing that J-8). the first guy in was an army captain, he actually punched out the first american he saw at the plane door because the american refused him entry stating the plane is american territory and property, obviously the captain couldn't care less and made sure he knew exactly who's territory the americans were on. so pretty much the troops were in the plane in less than a minute after the plane stopped. got this info from my great uncle, (the one in 611) he got co-workers that was very interested in the whole incident..

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I am suprised that that american still said that the plane is american teritory when of course in chinese air without permission, the thing belongs to china once confiscated.

Just wondering what are the chances that it is able to aquire some of the software from the harddisk

ahho said:

I am suprised that that american still said that the plane is american teritory when of course in chinese air without permission, the thing belongs to china once confiscated.

Just wondering what are the chances that it is able to aquire some of the software from the harddisk

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well, there is nothing wrong with what the American said, since China should theoretically give it back to the Americans untouched, but everyone knows that is not going to happen. So, he should have known better. It probably would've saved him from getting punched.

bd popeye said:

Ahemm...

Based on my knowledge of what that crew was to do with the intell equipment on board that aircraft the PRC gained little by dicesting that plane. Most of the intell equipment would have been rendered useless before landing. That includes IFF.

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How would they actually destroy that equipment? They could delete the data pretty quickly, I know that, but I don't see how they could destory hardware in such little time - that plane was in serious trouble, which was why it needed to land at Hainan. How would the crew actually go about destroying the equipment, I mean what would they do, smash it with mallets?:rofl:

DPRKPTboat said:

How would they actually destroy that equipment? They could delete the data pretty quickly, I know that, but I don't see how they could destory hardware in such little time - that plane was in serious trouble, which was why it needed to land at Hainan. How would the crew actually go about destroying the equipment, I mean what would they do, smash it with mallets?:rofl:

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to my knowledge these crews are trained for just such events and have what they need onboard to destroy sensitive equipment, which makes sense. It was probably a difficult task since they had little time and the ride down must have been very bumpy, but I imagine they managed to destroy at least some of what they needed to.

I imagine self-destruct mechanisms were built into the critical hardware components already. It would not be hard to use a small, controlled, hot-burning fire next to important chips or hard drives to melt them. It could even be one electrically.

Uh, I would never imagine a burning fire onboard an airplane. It will, first, take away oxygen and 2nd, would it be fully able to burn without choking for oxygen?

I would imagine that there is a handy axe by each station........

To anyone wise enough to answer this question.

How long did the Chinese have the plane until it give it back?

So we can have some idea about if they had enough time to analyse equipment.

bd popeye said:

Ahemm...

Based on my knowledge of what that crew was to do with the intell equipment on board that aircraft the PRC gained little by dicesting that plane. Most of the intell equipment would have been rendered useless before landing. That includes IFF.

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Well u might be right, but who really knows the true extend of the information gained by the PRC.
But one thing is when the EP3 landed in China, i was out in the field doing some infantry training. And then we were ordered to listen a "top brass" talk about crap. Basically he gave us all these new radios and took the old ones back because he said that the codes in the EP3 were the same ones used by us (Aussies), since its in China now, we have to change the codes in the radio.

Baibar of Jalat said:

To anyone wise enough to answer this question.

How long did the Chinese have the plane until it give it back?

So we can have some idea about if they had enough time to analyse equipment.

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Well the PRC did not allow the EP-3 to fly back to USA or even take off which was what the USA wanted for symbolic reasons. So therefore the EP-3 was disassembled in many parts and transported back to Hawaii on an AN-124. The aircraft arrived in Hawaii with all its parts on July 4th. So basically the PRC had 4 months to muck around on the EP-3.

Check this site out, it has lots of pictures. Sorry i don't know how to post pics.

Well the PRC did not allow the EP-3 to fly back to USA or even take off which was what the USA wanted for symbolic reasons. So therefore the EP-3 was disassembled in many parts and transported back to Hawaii on an AN-124. The aircraft arrived in Hawaii with all its parts on July 4th. So basically the PRC had 4 months to muck around on the EP-3.

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Thanks for that info. 4 months thats more then enough.

The chinese will have enough time to try to reconstruct the damage plus they took it apart so they analysed pretty much everything. Sorry Popeye i dont think they could destroy everything thus they gleaned something useful.

So they returned all of the plane, but did they return the equipment that wasn't destroyed? That would make a big difference. Apparently when the plane was captured the Chinese took out all of the electronics and software. Whereas they had four months to examine the plane, they may have had a lot longer to examine that equipment. Apparently though, they just left it where it was on the runway - they didn't even bother to put it in the hangar. Not much sign of examining its airframe.