Space Ship One and the X-Prise

Tkalbfus1 wrote:

There was that incident before 9/11, when the Chinese forced down a
US airplane onto its soil, and held its crew for several months.

For values of "several months" equal to 12 days. Too long, certainly, but
not that long.

And to be fair, the Chinese did not force the plane to land in China. They
hit it (almost certainly by accident, since their pilot was killed), but it
was the U.S. pilot who made a decision to land in China rather than ditch at
sea. In fact, the Chinese never gave it permission to land, which was the
legal basis for their holding the aircraft and crew. Not really sufficient,
since international law is fairly clear on emergency landings where no other
option exists to save lives, but that was the Chinese argument in any case.

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when
wrong to be put right." - Senator Carl Schurz, 1872