One Pilot Speaks of Surveillance Flights
April 5 -- What's it like to pilot a U.S. surveillance plane, trying to capture vital information about another country, when an enemy jet tries to disturb you? Nightline spoke with Navy Capt. Ray Leonard, who flew missions near the former Soviet Union like the one that went wrong in China. Following is a transcript of the interview.
Q: When you were flying these planes, engaged with the Russians, how close did they get?
A: It really varies. Some days they got within just a few hundered feet. Other days they would get within 20 to 30 feet off the wing tip. It kind of depended on the day and the weather and where we were at the time I think.
Q: Where there clearly understood rules of the road?
A: It seemed like it. Obviously we never had any discussions with them to lay anything out but when we were flying, our standard procedure was that if we got intercepted we would fly straight and level. And if we had to turn because of where we were flying, we would always make sure we would make a very slow entry into the turn so that the interceptor had ample time to adjust to our turn and get away from us.
Q: Why did you have to be so careful when you were turning making these maneuvers?
A: When they're flying that closely, there is not a whole lot of room for error … They could rapidly gain on you and could get enough closure so that they couldn't correct in time to avoid hitting you.
Q: The Chinese are suggesting the U.S. is to blame because our plane turned in such a way to cause the accident. What is your take?
A: I can't imagine a pilot that knew there was a fighter anywhere near them would make a turn like that. We never did, we always made very sure if we could turn away from the fighter we did. If we had to turn into them we always made sure it was a nice gentle turn and often times we would start the turn and stop and then slowly enter it again as a signal to them that he needed to pull away.
Q: Isn't there a certain amount of gamesmanship going on at least in your experience with the Russian pilots?
A: There was. Most times it was a very straight-forward operation. They would come join on us, see that we were the same airplane that was out there the day before probably, and then leave. Every once in awhile they would get a little closer, stay a little longer and on two occasions they did what we call a thumping maneuver — where they'd come up underneath us and then pop up in front of our nose and put us into their wing tip vertices and their jet wash and bounce the airplane. And one time they bounced so much that the auto pilot kicked off and we started to make a turn that we hadn't planned on and we had to quickly react to that.
Q: This thumping occurs when they are flying right underneath your aircraft and then pull up in front of you?
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