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A hero’s welcome for crew
Compiled from Times wires © St. Petersburg Times, published April 15, 2001
The 21 men and three women left Hawaii in a military passenger jet that touched down in Whidbey Island Naval Air Station five hours later after making a fly-by to circle the base. The crew was saluted at a ceremony in a naval hangar filled with about 10,000 people with a 40-foot by 60-foot American flag as a backdrop. The plane taxied to a giant hangar, where hundreds of sailors and officers in dress blues stood at attention. The crowd -- many dressed in red, white and blue -- waved flags and signs. The crew left Honolulu after wrapping up 26 hours of meetings with investigators about the April 1 collision with a Chinese fighter jet and the $80-million EP-3E plane they left on Hainan island. At a news conference before leaving Honolulu, the surveillance plane's pilot, Lt. Shane Osborn, described the harrowing collision and emergency landing. He said there was no need to apologize to the Chinese. "I'm here to tell you we did it right," Osborn said. "No apology is necessary on our part." Osborn said the EP-3E, a 1950s-era patrol plane powered by four piston engines, was "straight, steady, holding altitude, heading away from Hainan island, on autopilot when the accident occurred." "The first thing I thought was, "This guy just killed us,' " Osborn said. On Saturday, the Chinese government angrily described as "irresponsible" statements by U.S. officials that the Chinese fighter jet caused the collision. A spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, Zhang Qiyue, said U.S. officials continued to "confuse right and wrong and even falsely accuse the Chinese side." She warned of "further damages" to Chinese-American relations, according to the New China News Agency. She also said the United States was trying to shirk responsibility for the collision, and for what China considers the illegal violation of its borders when the damaged American plane landed on a military base in Hainan. Osborn said the Chinese were polite and respectful during the detention, but the crew suffered from lack of sleep and hours of unpleasant interrogations. Questioning began the first night they were in China and lasted 4 1/2 or five hours, Osborn said. "And then from then on it was definite lack of sleep; different wake up calls at all times. So I'd try and steal some sleep when I could," he said. Osborn did not say what the interrogations involved, saying only that the Chinese were mainly interested in the accident, in which their pilot and jet were lost. China on Saturday abandoned its search for pilot Wang Wei and hailed him a "revolutionary martyr." Chinese officials also insisted that the U.S. plane caused Wang to crash by veering unexpectedly toward his aircraft. "We have enough evidence to prove that it was the U.S. plane that violated flight rules by suddenly veering in a wide angle at the Chinese plane in normal flight, rammed into and damaged it, resulting in the loss of the Chinese pilot," Qiyue said. According to the U.S. version, after the Chinese jet's tail hit an engine of the plane, the jet broke in half and the American plane was sent into a steep, sloping dive. The U.S. crew was held until the diplomatic stalemate ended Wednesday with the words "very sorry" from U.S. officials, who say it was an expression of regret, not an apology as Chinese officials have characterized it. Flags and "Welcome Home" signs hung among yellow ribbons all over Oak Harbor, the town of 21,000 just outside the Navy base 50 miles north of Seattle. At Whidbey, red, white and blue balloons decorated the hangar, where a huge American flag hung above a platform stage. After the passenger plane pulled to a stop outside the hangar, an honor guard put down a red carpet at the foot of its stairway as a band played. Osborn was the first off the aircraft, acknowledging the screaming crowd with a wave before being greeted by Navy officials, Gov. Gary Locke and other dignitaries. As each crew member left the official welcome, loved ones rushed to greet them, enveloping them in deep hugs. The crew and their families were escorted into a nearby tent for a few private moments while the crowd filtered into the hangar for the formal welcome and speeches. Rear Adm. Michael Holmes, commander of the Navy's Pacific patrol and reconnaissance force, called the crew heroes, singling out Osborn for his coolness in landing his crippled plane. "No other course of action other than the course he took would have ensured all 24 crew members being here this afternoon," Holmes said. "Lt. Osborn made the right decisions." Mike Cecka was there to meet his son, Aviation Electronics Technician 2nd Class David Cecka. "You can't help but think about how close it was to him not being there with the family," he said. "There were angels under the wings of that plane." David Cecka embraced his wife, Nikki, and held his 4-month-old son close to his face. "It's unbelievable. I have no words for this," he told CNN. The crew members will begin up to a month of time off after Saturday. Navy officials want to make sure the crew is mentally ready to handle a return to duty. - Information from the Associated Press, New York Times and Knight Ridder was used in this report.
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From the Times wire desk
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