Diplomats try to free US spy crew

US diplomats have flown to an island in the South China Sea where a navy spy plane landed after a collision with a Chinese fighter jet.

A Chinese sailor says the 24 American crew members have been moved to a military guesthouse.

There is no indication whether Chinese authorities have entered the EP-3 plane to examine its monitoring equipment.

The plane landed on Hainan island on Sunday after an in-flight collision that China blamed on the US pilot.

American officials insist the Chinese have no right to enter or examine the aircraft without their permission.

Secret papers and tapes were almost certainly destroyed by the crew before the four-engined plane landed.

A military attache and a consular officer from the US consulate in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou were on Hainan and making their way to the airfield.

The US plane was standing empty at the airport where it landed in the town of Lingshui, said a Chinese sailor contacted there by telephone. The crew was moved to a military guesthouse, said the sailor, who refused to give his name.

A salvage ship sent from the Chinese mainland has joined a military search for the Chinese F-8 fighter, which Beijing says crashed after the collision, according to a Hainan provincial maritime official.

The unarmed propeller-driven plane took off from Okinawa, Japan. Its crew is made up of 22 Navy personnel, one Air Force officer and one Marine.

The EP-3 is about the size of a Boeing 737 commercial jetliner and carries equipment capable of monitoring radio, radar, telephone, e-mail and fax traffic.