No access to wrecked stealth copter: China

[aimarraul]

No access to wrecked stealth copter: China
(China Daily)09:19, August 17, 2011

BEIJING - The Chinese military on Tuesday refuted a report that Chinese intelligence officials were allowed by Pakistan to photograph the crashed US Blackhawk helicopter from the Osama bin Laden raid and take wreckage samples to research.

According to a press release sent to China Daily from the Information Affairs Bureau at the Ministry of National Defense, such reports are "groundless and ridiculous".

The Financial Times reported on Sunday that Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence gave China access to the previously unknown "stealth helicopter that crashed during the commando raid that killed Bin Laden in May, despite explicit requests from the Central Intelligence Agency not to do so."

During the raid, one of two modified Blackhawk helicopters, believed to employ secret stealth capability, malfunctioned and crashed, forcing the commandos to abandon it.

The newspaper quoted a person "in intelligence circles" as saying that Pakistan, which enjoys a close relationship with China, allowed Chinese intelligence officials to take pictures of the crashed chopper as well as take samples of its special "skin" that allowed the US raid to evade Pakistani radar.

US Navy SEALs reportedly tried to destroy the helicopter after it crashed at Bin Laden's compound on May 2, but the tail section of the aircraft remained largely intact.

"We had explicitly asked the Pakistanis in the immediate aftermath of the raid not to let anyone have access to the damaged remains of the helicopter," the Financial Times quoted the source as saying.

In an incident such as the helicopter crash, it is standard US procedure to destroy sophisticated technology such as encrypted communications and navigation computers.

A senior Pakistani security official denied the report and pointed out that the wreckage had been handed back to US officials shortly after the raid.

"It's just speculation. It's all false. The wreckage was handed back. There is no helicopter left (in Pakistan)," the official told AFP.

The US officials cautioned that they did not have definitive proof that the Chinese visited the town of Abbottabad where Bin Laden was killed.

They also said Pakistani officials denied showing the advanced helicopter technology to any other foreign government.

Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas also rejected the report in a statement late on Monday.

Abbas criticized foreign media for "launching a malicious campaign against Pakistan's security organizations" and urged them to verify and cross-check information rather than relying on "unnamed officials".

China Daily-Reuters-AFP

 

[Pakistanisage]

THIS IS A BLATANT ATTEMPT TO MALIGN CHINA AND PAKISTAN AND IS SHEER PROPOGANDA. BOTH CHINA AND PAKISTAN HAVE DENIED THAT CHINA WAS GIVEN ACCESS TO THE WRECKAGE AND THAT IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME.

 

[Safriz]

even the children of abbottabad had access to the crashes copter.....and for a substantial amount of time pak army didnt have a clue about what happened and what to do of the odd looking copter strewn across the fieids...many people picked up parts as souvenirs and had access to the weird tail of the copter...
many hours later the american diplomatic channel accepted that their people been to abbottabad and had forgotten a top secret machine in public domain...and asked pak army to remove it....
only then the area was cordoned off and the tail removed on a civilian tractor trolley....
so many people made videos took pictures..picked up parts...the american cover was blown the moment the chopper crashed.
and since they had given no info about the mission to pak army....pak army did not feel obliged to hide the downed copper.
a major planning ans strategy fail by pentagon.
i wont be surprised if tomorrow iran.north korea or any other country claims to have parts of the copter

 

[saadiqbal]

i am sure Pakistan gave access to that crashed helicopter.
Because every time there is a governmental denial that means the thing did happen.

But if Pakistan army didn't gave access to the helicopter it would be a mistake of a lifetime.

 

[akinkhoo]

Because every time there is a governmental denial that means the thing did happen.

like how you guys deny OBL was in Pakistan?

 

[Malik Usman]

like how you guys deny OBL was in Pakistan?

And how can you say that he was real OBL..............nobody has proof.............the real proof was imediately eliminated in sea........they didn't even buried his body on earth so nobody can take Forensic report and bring the real fact out.....and even those navy seals are killed in Afghanistan to keep this secret a secret....and blam has been given to Taliban.

 

[Imran Khan]

daal main kuch kala hai lolz .why china again and again repeat it ? they take only few samples its not wrong chopper voilate our border and was fall in pakistan we have every right to send peaces Russia china .

 

[gOtHmOG]

We have every right to do what we will with the chopper. It's like a robber demanding his gun back from the owners of the house he just robbed. Ridiculous!

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

THIS IS A BLATANT ATTEMPT TO MALIGN CHINA AND PAKISTAN AND IS SHEER PROPOGANDA. BOTH CHINA AND PAKISTAN HAVE DENIED THAT CHINA WAS GIVEN ACCESS TO THE WRECKAGE AND THAT IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME.

Because in their paranoid mindset, China is always getting the technology by stealing, cheating, etc.

 

[lem34]

Typical american lies and propaganda. First of all as usual they have no evidence. Secondly even if they did who are they pakistan and china are sovn countries that should not give a crxx what the americans think

 

[teddy]

actually pakistan is willing to give access to the wreck. But china seems like no interest at all.

 

[Xracer2]

Yeah Right

actually pakistan is willing to give access to the wreck. But china seems like no interest at all.

 

[SQ8]

The Chinese never looked at our F-16's.. that has been refuted and rebuffed by both our nations.
The Chinese never looked at the Martin Baker seats for their ejection systems...
refuted and rebuffed by both our nations..

The Chinese have not had access to the Fallen tomahawks..
that has been rebuffed and refuted by both our nations.

And so.. this has been rebuffed and refuted as well.

 

[below_freezing]

So the stealth chopper actually exists?

 

[S.M.R]

China already has advanced stealth technology

Islamabad

China is not interested in acquiring the stealth technology currently being used by the United States for its flying machines as it has already developed the same in a much advanced shape and is using it in its most sophisticated multi-role planes, highly placed defence sources told The News here Monday.

The planes have successfully conducted their test flights early this year and China is now in the production phase of its stealth planes. A chopper fitted with stealth characteristics is not much different to what is used for the fixed-wings planes. The Chinese never requested Pakistan to provide any sort of access to the debris of the US stealth chopper that crashed in the Abbottabad operation on May 2 in which American special forces reportedly killed Osama bin Laden (OBL) and took his body to Afghanistan.

Highly placed defence sources say American satellites were monitoring the movement in and around Abbottabad during the days when the debris was lying outside the OBL compound. The area was under the constant watch of the world media and US moles were also actively at work during that period. In such a situation it was not possible for any Chinese expert to examine the tail of the chopper and, secondly, China never asked for such access. The stealth planes exterior is made of highly specialised materials such as Polygraphite. China has complete knowledge of the technology and is successfully using it already, the sources maintained.

They pointed out that the western media reports pertaining to so-called inspection by the Chinese experts is totally baseless and it appearance after more than three months depicts ill-intention. The purpose is to malign Pakistan and build pressure on it.

Providing background of the technology the sources said that it is used to avoid detection by employing a combination of features to interfere with radar as well as reduce visibility in the infrared, visual, audio, and radio frequency (RF) spectrum. Development of stealth technology began in Germany during World War II.

Well-known modern examples of stealth aircraft include the United States’ F-117 Nighthawk (1981-2008), the B-2 Spirit, the F-22 Raptor, and the F-35 Lightning II. While no aircraft is totally invisible to radar, stealth aircraft prevents conventional radar from detecting or tracking the aircraft effectively, reducing the odds of a successful attack.

Stealth is the combination of passive low observable (LO) features and active emitters such as Low Probability of Intercept Radars, radios and laser designators. These are usually combined with active defences such as chaff, flares, and ECM. It is accomplished by using a complex design philosophy to reduce the ability of an opponent’s sensors to detect, track, or attack the stealth aircraft. This philosophy also takes into account the heat, sound, and other emissions of the aircraft as these can also be used to locate it. It has already been established that the United States does not have monopoly on the stealth technology, as some other countries are also equipped with it.

Full-size stealth combat aircraft demonstrators have been flown by the United States in 1977, Russia in 2010 and China in 2011, while the US Military has already adopted three stealth designs, and is preparing to adopt another.

Most recent fighter designs will at least claim to have some sort of stealth, low observable, reduced RCS or radar jamming capability, but as yet there has been no actual air-to-air combat experience against stealth aircraft.

During World War I, an attempt to reduce the visibility of military aircraft resulted in the German heavy bomber, the Linke-Hofmann R.I; this had a wooden structure covered with transparent material. The first true “stealth” aircraft may have been the Horten Ho 229 flying wing fighter-bomber, developed in Germany during the last years of World War II. In the closing weeks of the war the US military initiated “Operation Paperclip”, an effort by the US Army to capture as much advanced German weapons research as possible, and also to deny that research to advancing Soviet troops. A Horton glider and the Ho 229 number V3 were secured and sent to Northrop Aviation for evaluation in the United States, which much later used a flying wing design for the B-2 stealth bomber. The first combat use of purpose-designed stealth aircraft was in December 1989 during Operation Just Cause in Panama. On 20 December 1989, two USAF F-117s bombed a Panamanian Defence Force barracks in Rio Hato, Panama. In 1991, F-117s were tasked with attacking the most heavily fortified targets in Iraq in the opening phase of Operation Desert Storm and were the only jets allowed to operate inside Baghdad’s city limits.

Stealth aircraft are typically more expensive to develop and manufacture. An example is the B-2 Spirit that is many times more expensive than the conventional bomber aircraft. The B-2 programme cost the U.S. Air Force almost $45 billion.

Stealth aircraft have been used in several conflicts: the United States invasion of Panama, the Gulf War, the Kosovo conflict, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the 2011 military intervention in Libya. To date, the United States of America is the only country to have used stealth aircraft in combat.

The first use of stealth aircraft was in the United States invasion of Panama, where F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft were used to drop bombs on enemy airfields and positions while evading enemy radars. The successful first deployment of stealth aircraft to a combat zone marked a milestone in military aviation. In 1990 the F-117 Nighthawk was used again in the Gulf War, where F-117s flew approximately 1,300 sorties and scored direct hits on 1,600 high-value targets in Iraq while accumulating over 6,905 flight hours. Only 2.5% of the American aircraft in Iraq were F-117s, yet they struck more than 40% of the strategic targets, dropping over 2,000 tons of precision-guided munitions and striking their targets with over an 80% success rate.

The sources pointed out that in the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia two stealth aircraft were used by the United States, the veteran F-117 Nighthawk, and the newly introduced B-2 Spirit strategic stealth bomber. The F-117 performed its usual role of striking precision high-value targets and performed well, although one F-117 was shot down by a Serbian Isayev S-125 ‘Neva-M’ missile. The new B-2 Spirit was highly successful, destroying 33% of selected Serbian bombing targets in the first eight weeks of U.S. involvement in the War.

During this war, B-2s flew non-stop to Kosovo from their home base in Missouri and back.

In the 2003 invasion of Iraq, F-117 Nighthawks and B-2 Spirits were again used, and this was the last time the F-117 would see combat.

F-117s dropped satellite-guided strike munitions on selected targets, with high success. B-2 Spirits conducted 49 sorties in the invasion, releasing more than 1.5 million pounds of munitions. The most recent use of stealth aircraft was in the 2011 military intervention in Libya, where B-2 Spirits dropped 40 bombs on a Libyan airfield with concentrated air defences in support of the UN no-fly zone. In future, it is likely that stealth aircraft will continue to play a valuable role in air combat. In future conflicts the United States is likely to use F-22 Raptor, B-2 Spirit, and the F-35 Lightning II to perform a variety of operations.

In Russia, the Sukhoi PAK FA stealth multi-role fighter is to be introduced in 2015, to perform a wide variety of missions. In India, the Sukhoi/HAL FGFA, the Indian version of the PAK FA, is to be introduced from 2017 in higher numbers, also to perform a wide variety of missions. In China, the Chengdu J-20 stealth multi-role fighter is to be pressed into service around 2018. A prototype was flown early this year.

The sources reminded that the only time a stealth aircraft has been shot down was on 27 March 1999, during Operation Allied Force. An American F-117 Nighthawk’s bomb bay had malfunctioned causing it to remain open for an unusually long time, allowing a Serbian Air Defence crew who were operating their radars on unusually long wavelengths to launch an Isayev S-125 ‘Neva-M’ missile at it, which brought it down.

The pilot ejected and was rescued and the aircraft itself remained relatively intact due to striking the ground at a slow speed in inverted position. A B-2 crashed on February 23, 2008 shortly after takeoff from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the sources added.