竹炉山房

以前曾看过一篇文章《中美撞机揭密——美国机长披露全过程》讲述撞机过程。今天又看了一篇文章《海南撞机时的英雄王伟为何未能生还？》。我认为，从美方的角度看问题可能更彻底。所以我找了原版英文资料，翻译了一下。其中的“‘声音’评论员”就是我。

（以下英文内容由“声音”评论员摘自因特网，中文翻译由“声音”评论员虎虎提供并版权所有）

危险海峡：采访海军上尉谢恩·奥斯本

前线（Frontline）

Lt. Shane Osborn was the pilot of the U.S. EP-3 spy plane that collided with a Chinese F-8 fighter jet on April 1, 2001. Describing the incident and its aftermath, he tells FRONTLINE, "I thought 24 people were going to die in the middle of the ocean, and I wondered if anyone would know why." Interview conducted early autumn 2001.

（海军上尉谢恩·奥斯本是美军EP-3间谍飞机的机长，于2001年4月1日与中国歼八战斗机相撞。在与《前线》描述事故与后果时，他说：“我觉得24个人都要在海中间死了，我怀疑是否任何人知道为什么。”本采访于2001年早秋进行）

（提问者为《前线》杂志记者，回答者为海军上尉谢恩·奥斯本。——译者注）

问：Was April 1st just a normal day for you?

（4月1日对你来说是个平常的日子么？）

答：I'm sure. It was a Sunday. We had a 3:45 mission, so it was an early day, but we'd been flying for about a month with this crew out there in the Western Pacific. It was just a normal mission.

是的。是个星期天。我们的任务在3:45，所以很早，但是我们之前已经跟这些机组人员在西太平洋进行这样的任务一个月了。（所以）只是个普通任务。

问：What was the day like?

（天气怎么样？）

答：Actually, we'd been having thunderstorms. We'd cancelled a few times earlier in the week, so we were pretty excited, because the weather was clear all over the Pacific Ocean. So we had good weather and it was an early mission, but we were ready to fly.

事实上之前有雷阵雨。那个星期早些时候已经取消了一些任务，所以当整个太平洋都放晴的时候我们相当激动。于是我们有了个好天气，（虽然）有了个很早的任务但是我们准备就绪。

问：Where was your mission taking you?

（你们的任务是去哪？）

答：South China Sea was the area that we were flying. ...

南中国海。原文下略。

问：Had you flown that area before?

（之前去过这个区域吗？）

答：Sure, sure. ... I'd been flying in that part of the world for a couple of years.

当然，当然……我在那个区域飞来飞去已经一两年了。

问：Do you get used to seeing Chinese fighters?

（你习惯于见到中国战斗机吗？）

答：It's pretty amazing what you can get used to. A lot of people have asked that. Yes, we've been getting intercepted for years and years ... so as much as you can get used to something like that, having two or three armored fighters flying off your wing, well, we were used to it.

谈到“习惯于”的时候你能发现相当有趣。很多人都问过这个问题。是的，很多年来我们都被拦截过……多到你能够习惯，比如二到三架全副武装的战斗机从你机翼旁飞速而过，嗯，我们习惯了。

问：When you say "intercepted," what do they do?

（你刚才说“拦截”，他们怎么做的？）

答：They just come out to take a look at us. We're in international airspace. We would do the same thing if we had an aircraft flying up and down our coast. [They] just look at us and see what we're doing, let us know their presence.

他们只是跑出来看看我们。我们在国际空域。我们也会做同样的事如果我们发现一架飞机在我们的海岸飞来飞去。（他们）只是看看我们在做什么，让我们知道他们的存在。

问：Do they get close?

（他们靠得近吗？）

答：Not usually that close. They had become more aggressive over the recent months. They'd been closer and closer, but they'd never been that close, on the side of our wing. It's usually a pretty good distance off. ...

通常不那么近。这几个月越来越好斗了。他们之前越靠越近，但他们从没那么近过，就在我们机翼旁。通常是相当远的……

问：Did you know that particular pilot?

（你认识那个飞行员吗？——指王伟，评论员注）

答：They are out there flying. They've got a helmet on with an oxygen mask and an eye guard, so we don't know which one's which. They fly different planes, just like we do.

（中国飞行员们）他们在飞机旁飞行。他们有个头盔、氧气面罩和防护眼罩，所以我们不知道谁是谁。他们飞不同种的飞机，就像我们一样。

问：Whereabouts were you when the incident happened?

（当事故发生的时候你在哪里？）

答：We were about 70 miles southeast of Hainan Island. It had been a slow day and we were getting ready to go home. We had about ten minutes left before it was time to head home, and that's when we got intercepted. It was the first activity we'd had.

我们在海南岛东南70英里处。那天过得很慢，我们准备回家了。在回家前我们有十分钟，就在那时被拦截了。是那天第一次拦截。

问：What did you see?

（你看到什么了么？）

答：I was sitting in the right seat and saw two fighters. They actually overshot us by quite a bit, by about half a mile off our wing, off the right side. They always stayed on the island or land side of us. They kind of overshot us, pulled up, and then just kind of hung out there.

我当时坐在右座，看到两架战斗机。他们实际上飞在我们前面一点，大概机翼外半英里，右侧。他们总是呆在我们飞机靠近大陆的一侧。他们超过我们，拉起，然后就那样悬停。

It was time to go home so we started a very gradual turn with the autopilot away from Hainan Island, heading to the northeast basically, and were heading home. We figured they'd peel off and head back to base, but they didn't.

是时候准备回家，所以我们开始用自动驾驶仪逐渐转弯离开海南岛，转向大致西北，然后飞回家。我们以为他们会飞开并且回到基地，但他们没有。

问：What happened then?

（然后发生什么了？）

答：Obviously, we have people man the windows for something like that, and we received a call from the back. They said, "Hey, they are joining up on us." That was nothing new, so at that point we weren't nervous. But you could hear the tension in the voices rising steadily as they got closer and closer. There were just calls from the back, "Hey, he's right off our wing, he's tight, that's the closest I've seen," you know, all types of comments. ...

显而易见，我们有人员在机舱后面窗户关注此事，然后我们就接到个从后面打来的电话。他们说：“嘿，他们跟我们一起飞。”那没什么新奇的，所以我们并不紧张。但你能听到当中国飞行员飞得越来越近的时候后面说话声音越来越紧张。然后从后面传来声音：“嘿，他就在我们的右翼，很紧，我见过最近的。