Crew of American spy plane played cards, acted skits to pass time in captivity
By Associated Press
While detained on China’s Hainan island, the 24 spy plane crew members played cards, acted out skits based on television shows and even taught a guard words to the song Hotel California.
“They got quite a few laughs,” Lt. Patrick Honeck said of the skits. “We did a People’s Court spoof, news like on Saturday Night Live and one of The Crocodile Hunter.” He said guards who understood English laughed.
In between the lighter moments, they were subjected to hours of interrogation.
Last Sunday was the crew’s first full day back home at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in Washington state, and several crew members gave their fullest account yet of their experiences.
In the seconds after their plane collided with a Chinese fighter on April 1, crew members said, they feared they would have to bail out with parachutes or crash land in the South China Sea. Many were certain they would die.
The fighter pilot buzzed the American EP-3E several times before clipping a propeller, knocking it out of operation and knocking off the plane’s nose cone.
“After his first two runs at us, it got kind of surreal, like slow motion,” Honeck told The New York Times in Monday’s edition. He recalled that the Chinese pilot saluted on his first pass, and “mouthed something to us” on the second.
On the third approach, the Chinese fighter collided with the American plane, causing it to plummet from 22,500 feet. The fighter broke in half and crashed into the sea, presumably killing the pilot.
“The first thing I thought of was, ‘Oh, my God,’” said Aviation Machinist’s Mate Second Class Wendy Westbrook, the navigator. “All I could see was blue water.”
“I didn’t think we were going to make it,” Lt. j.g. Jeffrey Vignery told The Washington Post. “I said another prayer at that time, just in case I didn’t get it right the first time.”
He said that when mission commander Lt. Shane Osborn ordered the crew to put on parachutes, he thought that “obviously some of us wouldn’t have time to bail out.”
As the plane leveled out, Osborn canceled the bailout order and told the crew to prepare to ditch at sea. But Osborn regained enough control, and Honeck studied maps to see where they might land. The plane’s base at Okinawa was too far, as was the Philippines.
They chose Hainan even without permission from the Chinese to land.
As they headed for the island, the crew began destroying sensitive equipment. Crew members declined to discuss what they did or whether they completed the tasks.
After they landed, Osborn said, a small group of armed Chinese military, including an interpreter, approached.
“He told us not to move and don’t do anything,” Osborn told the Times. “I asked if I could use a phone to call the U.S. ambassador to let him know we were safe on deck, but he said they had already taken care of that. Then they told us to get off the plane and they were pretty adamant about it. We dropped a ladder, and I got off first.”
“It wasn’t a time to make a stand. We were unarmed. They’re armed. So they have the advantage,” Osborn said Sunday on ABC-TV’s This Week.
The Americans were taken to a barracks.
“Their best barracks,” Osborn said. “But by American standards, they were poor. Lots and lots of bugs and mosquitoes. But it was livable.”
After two nights, they were moved to a nearby base lodge. Aside from meals, they were segregated from other residents.
Interrogations were conducted at various times, often in the middle of the night and sometimes as long as five hours.
The food varied. “It was Chinese food, but definitely not Americanized,” Vignery said. They were served fish heads “until they realized we weren’t into fish heads.”
Vignery said the crew played cards and read a few English-language Chinese newspapers they were given. They learned little about the tense diplomatic standoff surrounding their detention.
One guard, Honeck said, “wanted to know the lyrics to an American song he heard, Hotel California, by the Eagles.” |
