A Chinese fighter jet came within 10 feet of a US Air Force B-52 bomber flying over the South China Sea on Tuesday, according to the US military.
The Chinese pilot “flew in an unsafe and unprofessional manner, demonstrated poor airmanship by closing with uncontrolled excessive speed, flying below, in front of, and within 10 feet of the B-52, putting both aircraft in danger of collision,” US Indo-Pacific Command said in a Thursday statement. “We are concerned this pilot was unaware of how close he came to causing a collision.”
News of the latest Chinese intercept comes as President Joe Biden is expected to speak with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi when he visits the White House on Friday, CNN reported on Thursday. It is not clear whether the meeting will be a formal discussion or a more informal meet and greet. Wang is also expected to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday and national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Friday.
The Chinese military is severely lacking in accountability and professionalism. The pilots think this kind of flying projects skill, when really it shows their incompetence.
This is completely not true. It does not show incompetence whatsoever. Quite the opposite actually. Dangerous, reckless, unprofessional, yes. But at those speeds, it takes skill to get that close, and not be pulled into the other plane and crash, when the other plane is not actively participating in the stunt. That’s why the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels, and every other stunt team in the world practice for 100’s of hours on this. It is not easy to do in any case. Bernoulli’s principle makes it get more difficult the faster you are moving. That is why a chinese pilot crashed into an E3 years ago, when he tried to pull the same crap.
A professional would recognize the slim margin for error and numerous things that could go wrong and just not do this type of crazy stunt at all
You’re saying this as if the pilot was just hotdogging and was totally ignorant of the risks. That’s pretty unlikely.
The Chinese government has been pretty clear about what they think of “freedom of navigation exercises”. If Chinese bombers were flying around the coast of the US you can be damn sure we’d be scrambling fighters to crawl up their butts too.
Those pilots got orders and carried them out successfully. You may disagree with the orders but it’s silly to accuse the pilot of lack of professionalism.
Lol… All the dumb downvotes these days… At least reply after a downvote to explain why You downvoted in the first place. Annoying 😞 but funny 😂🤣
Edit: how’d I get more downvotes then the messages below? 👇 🤣😂
And? They’ve been doing this shit for 20+ years and nothing ever comes of it.
Fearmongering because we’re in a second cold war with China. That’s what this is.
China is so reliant on the US economy that the odds of a war with China are exceptionally low.
Considering US/China relations a cold war and not just dick waving is a massive exaggeration of Chinese capabilities.
Do you think that the cold war with the USSR was announced by Congress or something? A cold war doesn’t mean it will go hot; we never waged war with the USSR.
He was just communicating
Charlie: Well, if you were directly above him, how could you see him? Maverick: Because I was inverted. Iceman: [coughs] Bullshit. Goose: No, he was, man. It was a really great move. He was inverted. Charlie: You were in a 4G inverted dive with a MiG-28? Maverick: Yes, ma’am. Charlie: At what range? Maverick: About two meters? Goose: Well, it’s actually about one and a half, I think. It was one and a half. I’ve got a great Polaroid of it, and he’s right there, must be one and a half. Maverick: Was a nice picture. Goose: Thanks. Charlie: Eh, Lieutenant, what were you doing there? Goose: Communicating. Maverick: Communicating. Keeping up foreign relations. I was, you know, giving him the bird. Goose: You know, the finger
Shouldn’t all bombers be flying with fighter escorts? How did a Chinese fighter plane manage to get so close to it?
Why not? The Chinese fighter jet got too close. Had a fighter been following that B52 that Chinese fighter wouldn’t have been able to get close, because our fighter jet would shoot him down
Ah yes, let’s potentially start WW3 with a nuclear power because a Chinese pilot got too close, and an American pilot got an itchy trigger finger.
I’d love for that to be the reason I get flash boiled in a nuclear strike.
Because that is an act of war. They are in international waters/air space. They are both allowed to be there. It is dangerous and unprofessional to get that close. The presence being known is all that matters. That jet can engage from 10 miles away or more, depending on the missiles it carries. Shooting it down just for getting close would start a war. And we do the same thing to their planes. We just maintain a safe distance. The US and Russia have done this since the 1940’s to each other.
If nothing else, the fighter could lock their weapons at the Chinese fighter jet and make them sweat a bit.
There were fighter pilots from 3 nations escorting a B52 on Sunday. The articles I can find for the Tuesday flight do not mention any fighter escorts.
https://www.flyingmag.com/us-japan-south-korea-conduct-trilateral-b-52-escort-exercise/
Most likely the bomber was flying there to establish our right to do. By not being a fighter it helps avoid an engagement. I have no specific knowledge of this incident, but in general we don’t want an engagement as that can escalate quicky. We just want to say that we don’t recognize the borders they claim.
No, we don’t really do that any more. It’s not really necessary.
We put the fighters where they need to be when they need to be there. This bomber is just flying its patrol route, they don’t need to be protected along their path to the target, they don’t need to be anywhere near their targets, they’re loaded with cruise missiles and they strike from dozens or hundreds of miles away.
