The Times (London) April 3, 2001, Tuesday
Three women may be among aircrew
BY Laura Peek in Washington
THREE women are among the crew of the US spy plane, according to some reports. The Pentagon has so far refused to release the names of the 24 crew members.
The Orion EP-3 plane typically carries three pilots, one navigator, three tactical evaluators and one flight engineer, according to the Federation of American Scientists. The rest of the crew usually consists of equipment operators, technicians and mechanics. None of the jobs on board the aircraft is restricted to men.
Military intelligence experts said that the crew members would be young but highly skilled. There is also likely to be at least one Chinese linguist among them. The intelligence-gathering crew members would be enlisted personnel in their 20s, John Pike, director of Global Security, the Washington-based defence policy group, said.
Some could have enlisted in the US Navy as recently as two years ago, he said. The pilots would be older and there would be at least one highly experienced crew member, he said. He or she would be in their 30s with an intelligence background.
"That person would probably be a Chinese linguist and could have focused on Chinese military development over the last decade," he said. "That person would probably know all there is to know about Chinese military capabilities and would understand the intelligence gathered on the spot."
The crew as well as the aircraft would have intelligence knowledge valuable to the Chinese, he said. However, it would take time for the Chinese to learn it. "It's not as though there is just some secret formula they could blurt out that would give away the whole game. It would take months of questioning to learn everything they know."
The intelligence-gathering crew members would sit at computer stations in the aircraft during surveillance flights. They would have displays with a map of the coastline, with diodes indicating the locations of air defence radars, air traffic radars and radio transmitters.
"They would be looking for where aircraft and ships are and what they are doing. How well trained are the forces? How often do they train? How many airplanes are in the air at any given time?"
Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Limited
