China ends search for missing pilot

China has accused US officials of making irresponsible comments about the spy plane air crash.

It came as the search for China's pilot, Wang Wei, lost when his jet plunged into the sea after the collision with a US surveillance plane, ended.

State media has lionised Wang as a martyr for national defence and China's navy has formally declared him a revolutionary hero.

"Analysis of the situation from every angle indicated there is no chance he could have survived," Xinhua News Agency reports.

The navy had launched what it said was its biggest search ever to find him, using military and fishing boats and aircraft to comb 33,200 square miles of tropical ocean, it said.

Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue reiterated China's insistence that the US aircraft suddenly veered toward Wang's fighter, causing it to crash.

US officials, in the days since the release of 24 American crew members held following the collision, have said the American aircraft was flying straight and level when it was struck by the Chinese jet.

"We have enough evidence to prove that it was the US plane that violated flight rules by suddenly veering in a wide angle at the Chinese plane in normal flight, rammed into and damaged it, resulting in the loss of the Chinese pilot," Zhang said in a statement read on state-run television.

Zhang said senior US officials had "continued to confuse right and wrong and even falsely accuse the Chinese side in irresponsible comments made by high-ranking members of the US administration in the last few days, in an attempt to shirk its responsibility."