Spy Plane Finale: An 8,000-Ft. Plunge and a Tough Choice

GOING NOSE TO NOSE IN THE SKY

The video was chilling. On Friday afternoon, after the U.S. flight crew was safely back in the U.S., Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld began a reporters' briefing with a frightening recording made by a U.S. EP-3E crew flying near China in January. The video image showed a Chinese F-8 jet hotdogging and harassing the American aircraft. Flying on the very edge of controllability, the F-8 pilot slowed his fighter down enough to dance alongside the U.S. plane. At one moment the nose fell dramatically, almost banging into the U.S. plane. U.S. officials say the pilot could very well have been Wang...

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