Zhao circled to lose height, just in time to see the plane hit the sea and the parachute follow. Wang was born in 1968 at Huzhou in East China's Zhejiang Province. His parents worked at a machine tools plant. The Americans fell 8,000ft before the pilot could steady the plane and make for the only runway within reach at Lingshui - a military airfield that does not appear on any Chinese map. First, they destroyed software and data, then set about the more complex task of obliterating the hardware.
Officials say, however, that some material was 'locked' even to the crew.
The People's Liberation Army does not lack the expertise to get at it, and with classic Cold War irony the EP-3 had landed on an island bristling with radar and communications networks to enforce China's claims to the South China Sea. The crew were taken from the plane under armed escort and driven to a guesthouse - the pilot was singled out and separated from the rest before bring reunited with them. The Defence Intelligence Agency says it tracks Chinese spy flights along the American Pacific coastline and admits openly that 'routine reconnaissance' flights patrol the Chinese coast, monitoring submarine movements and naval manoeuvres. Only a month ago, two US planes allegedly flew into the Yellow Sea to observe strategic exercises by the East China Fleet. Seen off by four fighters they returned to Okinawa.