BEIJING — China and the United States have agreed to have a U.S. Navy spy plane disassembled and shipped home from a Chinese air base where it has been held since a mid-air collision April 1 with a Chinese fighter jet, a Chinese government spokesman said Thursday.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao gave no details and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing had no immediate comment.
U.S. technicians concluded the EP-3E electronic surveillance plane could fly home. China rejected that option, possibly trying to punish Washington for the incident by forcing it to destroy its aircraft in the process of retrieving it.
The collision, which is believed to have killed the Chinese fighter pilot, plunged U.S.-Chinese relations to their lowest level since the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999.
The U.S. plane made an emergency landing at a Chinese air base on Hainan island in the South China Sea following the collision. Its 24 crew members were held for 10 days before being released 11 days later.
