Lockheed Martin EP-3 Orion Plane
Date: July 2001
Place: China
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The highest profile air charter movement of the recent years was the return of the US Navy's Lockheed Martin EP-3 Orion 'surveillance-plane', which made a forced landing on China's Hainan island after a mid-air incident with Chinese air force fighters to America in July 2001.

The recovery charter started off in total secrecy with the lowest possible profile being maintained - even to the extent that we were required to refer all press enquiries to a US Pentagon military spokesman. Everything went so well during the recovery that one of the two original AN-124s lined up for the operation was not needed and the whole US aircraft was moved with just one AN-124.

We shuttled the AN-124 with pre-staged disassembly equipment outbound from Okinawa, Japan, to Hainan and parts of the EP-3 ranging from its dorsal fin to the crew's parachutes, back again. The flight back to the US with the fuselage was the final step in the three-week operation. On 3, July the An-124 left Hainan island in the South-China sea for Dobbins Air Force Base in the US.
The representative of the European Institute of Air Transport Management (Great Britain) presented the award "Mission Impossible" to Anatoly Karpov for the outstanding efforts and excellent quality when performing transportation of the American spy plane EP-3 from China to USA in July, 2001.
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