Navy Times by Courtney Mabeus 2/27/2020
A Chinese warship targeted a U.S. naval patrol aircraft with a laser in international airspace earlier this month, Pacific Fleet announced Thursday.
Navy officials in Hawaii blasted the Chinese actions as “unsafe and unprofessional."
The Navy P-8A Poseidon was conducting routine operations on Feb. 17 about 380 miles west of Guam in the Philippine Sea when the incident occurred, Pacific Fleet spokesperson Lt. j.g. Rachel McMarr told Navy Times.
The laser was not visible to the naked eye but was detected in flight by sensors on board the aircraft, McMarr said.
No aircrew members were injured and the plane landed safely at Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, Japan, where it is forward deployed from the Jacksonville, Florida-based Patrol Squadron 45.
“The aircraft is currently undergoing a damage assessment,†she said.
The Navy said the laser actions by the People’s Liberation Army Navy Destroyer 161 violated the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, a multilateral agreement reached at the 2014 Western Pacific Naval Symposium to reduce the chances of at-sea incidents.
More:
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2020/02/28/pacific-fleet-chinese-destroyers-laser-targeted-us-plane/
