China denies ‘unsafe’ intercepting of US plane

BEIJING: Accusing the Pentagon of distorting facts, China on Sunday denied its charge that an encounter between Chinese fighter jets and an American surveillance plane over the South China Sea was “unsafe and unprofessional”.

Chinese J-10 fighter planes intercepted a US Navy P-3 Orion operating in international airspace over the South China Sea, the Pentagon had claimed. The US termed the move as “unsafe and unprofessional” and said that it would convey its concerns to the Chinese government.

However, Chinese defence ministry in a statement said the US account of the incident “was not in accordance with the facts”. “On May 25, a US patrol plane carried out reconnaissance activities in the airspace southeast of Hong Kong, China,” it said in a statement on its website. “The Chinese military aircraft carried out identification in accordance with law. The operations were professional and safe,” it said.

A defense official said one of the Chinese J-10 fighter jets flew about 200 yards in front of the US P-3 aircraft and about 100 feet above it, doing slow turns. The second Chinese fighter remained about 750 yards off the P-3’s right wing. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Navy Cdr. Gary Ross said the Navy P-3 Orion was operating in international airspace. He said the US is reviewing the incident and will convey concerns to the Chinese.

Last week, US defense officials said two Chinese SU-30 jets conducted an unprofessional intercept of an American radiation-sniffing surveillance plane in the East China Sea.

Pacific Air Forces spokeswoman Lt. Col. Lori Hodge said at the time that the Chinese aircraft approached a WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft — a modified Boeing C-135 — conducting a routine mission in international airspace in accordance with international law.

The WC-135 crew characterized the intercept as unprofessional “due to the maneuvers by the Chinese pilot, as well as the speeds and proximity of both aircraft,” Hodge said.

Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said the American plane was conducting surveillance over the Yellow Sea — the northern part of the East China Sea — and that the Chinese jets moved to identify and verify the plane “in accordance with laws and regulations.”

In a separate incident this week, China protested a US Navy patrol that sent a guided missile destroyer near a group of man-made islands in the South China Sea on Thursday, in the first American challenge to Beijing’s claims to the waters since President Donald Trump took office. China’s Defense Ministry told reporters that it had sought an explanation with US officials over the incident, which Beijing said involved the USS Dewey and took place around Mischief Reef, one of a chain of artificial islands China has built and fortified to assert its claims over the strategic waterway.

While US officials did not immediately comment on Thursday’s operation, Washington has in the past insisted that it has the right to conduct so-called freedom of navigation operations, or FONOPS, in the area because it is in international waters.

The Navy conducted similar operations under former President Barack Obama, but had not done so since Trump took office and began talking up the prospect of warming ties with Beijing and cooperating over issues like North Korea. A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the US destroyer had “trespassed” near islands over which China has “indisputable sovereignty.” LONDON: British Airways (BA) warned of further delays and cancellations as it resumed flights on Sunday following a major IT failure that saw most services cancelled from London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports on Saturday.

Between 6 and 9 am, 91 British Airways flights were scheduled to depart from both the airports, the BBC reported.

So far 42 flights have left Heathrow and 29 have been cancelled. At Gatwick, 19 planes have departed and one flight to Amsterdam was cancelled. An airline spokesman said the staff are “continuing to give passengers free water and snacks”. The IT failure had affected check-in and operational systems, including customer service phone lines.

BA said although some of its IT systems have returned, “there will be some knock-on disruption to our schedules as aircraft and crews are out of position around the world.”

“We are repositioning some aircraft during the night to enable us to operate as much of our schedule as possible throughout Sunday,” the BBC quoted the airlines as saying.

A BA spokesman said: “We are extremely sorry for the huge disruption caused to customers throughout Saturday and understand how frustrating their experiences will have been.” “We are refunding or rebooking customers who suffered cancellations on to new services as quickly as possible and have also introduced more flexible rebooking policies for anyone due to travel on Sunday and Monday who no longer wishes to fly to or from Heathrow or Gatwick,” he added. The airline also said most long-haul flights due to land in London on Sunday were expected to arrive as normal.