NEWS April 2001
An international incident occurred on 1 April, as a United States Navy Ep-3 intelligence aircraft collided with a Chinese people’s liberation Army Navy J-8II fighter. The US flight was passing through sensitive airspace over the South China Sea, near to the disputed Paracel Islands and Hainan Island in China. The J-8 pilot, Lieutenant Commander Wang Wei was killed in the collision and the US plane was forced into an emergency landing on Hainan. 24 American crew members were held by the Chinese government until the USA released a statement of ‘apology’ on 11 April.
Also on 1 April, one wedding between a female couple and three weddings between male couples were conducted simultaneously at midnight in the Netherlands, to celebrate the legalisation of same-sex marriage. The European country was the first in the world to legalise same-sex marriages.
On 28 April, American entrepreneur Dennis Tito became the first human to fly to space as a tourist, joining a Russian Federal Space Agency visiting mission to the International Space Station. He paid an estimated $20 million for the trip, in which he was taken to the space station by Soyuz spacecraft. NASA was reluctant to work with Tito and refused to aid in his training. He spent just under eight days in space before returning to Earth in another Soyuz.