Re: ME and EP-3

["Kevin" <k_ertsman@xxxxxxx>]

This is my first post, but I thought that this might be important for this
thread.

This morning a press release came out saying that a Pentagon official stated
the crew of the plane had destroyed all of the sensitive material before
they were take captive. Here is the official story from Yahoo, the story is
at CNN, but for some reason the link points to the wrong story.

===============================

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The crew of a U.S. spy plane that landed in China
destroyed all the sensitive reconnaissance data aboard before the aircraft
was taken over by the Chinese military, defense officials said on Wednesday.

``The crew was able to complete their destruction procedures,'' one of the
officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. The Pentagon
(news - web sites) earlier expressed fear that sensitive material could have
been compromised after the four-engine plane collided with a Chinese
fighter, then landed on Hainan Island on Sunday.

The defense officials did not provide details, but said that the 24-member
crew of the EP-3 surveillance plane had been trained to erase
computer-stored material and make secret equipment aboard useless in such an
emergency.

Despite demands by President Bush (news - web sites), China is still holding
the damaged plane and the 21 men and three women who were aboard when it
landed following the mid-air collision.

China on Wednesday berated the United States for its ''arrogance'' and
``repeated errors'' over the stranded spy plane and crew and insisted again
on an apology from Washington.