We reported last week about the US fighter jet that crash-landed into the China sea. Reports are that China is racing the US to be the first to find the fighter jet that is embedded with some of the most advanced technology in the world.
A US F-35C crash-landed in the China Sea a few days ago. The incident was caught on video.
Photo and Video of US F-35C Crash Landing in South China Sea Confirmed by Navy
Now it’s being reported that China is racing against the US to locate the jet on the sea’s bottom. The Daily Caller is reporting:
Chinese salvage ships left port Wednesday and are heading towards the location of the sunken F-35C Lightning II jet, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.
The U.S. fighter jet crashed into the South China Sea in January during “routine flight operations,” the Navy said in a public statement Jan. 24. Since then, the U.S. Navy has been scrambling to remove the jet from the bottom of the sea before China does.
While Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian previously denied that Beijing was attempting to get the F-35C, a military source with direct knowledge of the situation told the Daily Caller on Wednesday that three Chinese salvage ships were heading towards the crash site.
“The Chinese are surging assets, including salvage vessels, to the general vicinity,” added another source, who is from the Pentagon and has knowledge of the situation, putting the number of ships at “one or more.”
“We are tracking where they are going,” the Pentagon source said, noting that it will be difficult for the U.S. to get the aircraft out of the sea because of both its depth and how it sunk.
The Pentagon source described the Chinese “sniffing around” as “notable” and “irritating,” but maintained that the U.S. does not believe China will be able to get the aircraft from the bottom of the sea. The person also asserted that U.S. “deep water tech” is superior to China’s.
“Legally speaking, they can’t have it,” the individual explained. “It’s U.S. property and falls under well-established salvage law. It’s not finders-keepers-losers-weepers. Grabbing it would be theft and would be such a blatantly hostile act that it would force a major degradation in relations. There is no way politically [President Joe] Biden could let it go.”