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Spy plane dismantling begins
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A HUGE Russian-made An-124, one of two aircraft which will be used to remove the crippled US EP-3 spy plane to the United States, landed on Hainan island on Saturday morning, China's Foreign Ministry has confirmed.
“Work on dismantling the US EP-3 surveillance plane has already started,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue told a press conference.
On board the cargo plane was a 12-person recovery team and equipment needed to dismantle the spy plane, which could take several weeks.
The US Pacific Command said it would take nearly three weeks starting from yesterday to dismantle the wing, tail, engines and fuselage of the spy plane and prepare it for shipping from Hainan's Lingshui Airport.
The dismantled spy plane would be loaded onto two AN-124 aircraft — each with a capacity of 120 tonnes — from July 5 to 11, it said in a statement.
An advance team of US officials arrived on Hainan earlier this week to start work on retrieving the spy plane, the US State Department has said.
The spy plane made an emergency landing on Hainan following a collision with a Chinese fighter on April 1.
(SD-Agencies)
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