Aha. I just came across some pictures of the Navy plane that landed at Yongshu Island to pick up sick patients and transport them to Sanya, Hainan.
Only the first two pics give a sense of the background and they don't look like Fiery Cross. There appears to be a hill in the second pic. I would say they are photos of the plane landing in Hainan and offloading the patients. If this was an emergency stop, I also would doubt the photo op on Fiery.
@joshuatree
Very good pickup.
When I looked through the pictures again, the first set show the arrival of the patients in Sanya, Hainan while the second set by bee4217 shows Yongshu Island.
It's just my opinion.
On April 14, Thanh Nien reporters approached the Hughes Reef to take pictures of the illegal construction.
The nine-storied building that China illegal built on Tu Nghia (Hughes) Reef in Vietnam’s Truong Sa (Spratly) Islands. Photo: Trung Hieu
An antenna tower on the left side of the building
A watchtower on the right side of the building
Chinese vessels regularly travel in and out the reef for construction work
A lighthouse that China built on the reef
China is still consolidating the land around the reef
A Vietnamese Navy vessel patrols the East Sea