On the 18th of May, the 24-member crew of the aircraft received medals at a ceremony at Andrews AFB, Maryland. The pilot, Lt. Shane Osborn, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Osborn and the senior enlisted man on the crew, Senior Chief Nicholas Mellos, received the Meritorious Service Award, and the other crew members received the Air Medal. The Distinguished Flying Cross medal ranks just above the Bronze Star and just below the Legion of Merit. Lt. Osborn received the medal for saving his crew by pulling the aircraft out of an uncontrollable dive.
Before the ceremony, in which the military flew in an EP-3 aircraft similar to the aircrew's aircraft, the crew met with President Bush at the White House.
The Chinese fighter pilot who flew his aircraft into the EP-3, Wang Wei (pronounced wong way), is being treated as a martyr in China. He has been missing since the incident occurred on April 1 and is presumed dead. China refused to release the crew until the U.S. government expressed sorrow for Wei's death. (I know what you're thinking: "We're sorry your stupid fighter pilots in their Migs can't outfly a lumbering, four-engine propeller aircraft").
The aircraft, which suffered damage to its nose, engine, and controls, still remains on Chinese soil. China has refused to allow repairs to the aircraft so that it could be flown home. A team of five civilian technicians from Lockheed-Martin, manufacturer of the aircraft, inspected it earlier this month and determined that the damage could be repaired sufficiently to fly the aircraft off Hainan Island. So far, China refuses to allow that to happen. An alternative to flying the aircraft home is to remove it piece by piece and fly it home in a large cargo aircraft.
From reports I've seen, after the collision the aircrew of the EP-3 managed to destroy around 80% of all classified material on board the aircraft before landing in China. No word on exactly what information the Chinese obtained from the aircraft, nor can we expect much information along that line due to the information being classified. As I reported last week, an encryption code shared by Japan and the U.S. may have been compromised. Changing the encryption system would cost millions of dollars. Hopefully if the crew performed their emergency destruct procedures, the only information the Chinese obtained is low-level intelligence.
"Emergency destruct" is a term used to refer to destroying classified material when it is in danger of falling into enemy hands. The most sensitive classified material & equipment is destroyed first, then the second highest, then the low-level material is destroyed. This allows the most sensitive material to be destroyed in case there isn't enough time to destroy everything. That way if any information does fall into enemy hands, it won't be the most damaging.
My hat is off to the 24 crewmembers for going through such an ordeal.