Pakistan says will not share US helicopter wreckage

[Neo]

Pakistan says will not share US helicopter wreckage

Pakistan said Wednesday it would not share the wreckage of a US helicopter used in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden with China, after speculation that the aircraft contained secret technology.

“Pakistan is not going to share any technology, and I don’t think our friends in China have shown any interest in doing so,” Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani told CNN.

Photographs of the wrecked helicopter, which malfunctioned during the raid and was deliberately blown up, fueled speculation among experts and enthusiasts that new features had been added to it to reduce noise or foil radar detection.

Some even postulated that the helicopter, which officials say was a Blackhawk, was actually an entirely new kind of “stealth” aircraft, with technology that could fall into the hands of Pakistan’s ally China.

Defense analysts, however, have said that although the wrecked aircraft appears to be a modified Blackhawk, the technology in question is not shrouded in secrecy and Pakistan and China would gain little from the remains.

Tensions between the United States and its ally Pakistan have run high since bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the world’s most wanted man, was found living in a garrison town near Islamabad.

Haqqani insisted, however, that the two countries were still “in close contact” and were trying to “get to the bottom of things.” “The United States and Pakistan, at the government-to-government level, the intelligence-to-intelligence level and military-to-military level, are in close contact,” he told CNN.

“We are not in the business of denial or contradiction right now. We are trying to get to the bottom of things, understand the intelligence and work together,” he added.

“At the same time, we continue to be concerned about unilateral actions and would prefer if the United States works with Pakistan instead of making Pakistan look like the bad guy.”

[keysersoze]

Intrigue surrounds fate of stealth helo wreckage

by Caitlin Harrington Lee and Farhan Bokhari, Jane’s Defence News, 5/13/2011 –

image

The as-yet unidentified helicopter used in the Osama bin Laden operation (which could be a heavily modified Sikorsky MH/UH-60 Black Hawk variant shown here) was destroyed by US forces and the wreckage left on the ground at Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

With Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani scheduled to travel to China on 17 May for a high-profile four-day visit, Western defence officials will be searching for some indication of what Pakistan is likely to do with the stealth helicopter wreckage it retrieved following the US raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound.

A senior Pakistani government official described speculation that China is seeking access to the aircraft as "mere nonsense", though he did confirm that the wreckage was still in Pakistani hands.

Two senior NATO defence officials based in Islamabad said the US is seeking the return of the wreckage to prevent it being passed onto third parties such as China. "The US is desperate to get the wreckage back," one of the officials said.

What ultimately happens to the stealth helicopter wreckage left behind by US special forces during the 1 May raid may depend largely on how the parties concerned answer a single question: ‘How much is it worth?’

Some former and current US government officials have cautioned that Pakistan would have little to lose by sharing the technology with China, and that the consequences for the US would be grave if it could not immediately recover the wreckage. . . .

[vinod2070]

The reports say that it has been returned already?

[keysersoze]

Where did you hear that?

[vinod2070]

Pakistan returns stealth helicopter debris to US - CBS News

Let me google that for you

[Araz]

It is the sensible thing to do in any case.Differences aside one needs to be seen as law abiding people. As to sharing intelligence, thewre are many ways and means of doing so if desired.Need i remind you that there are chinese egineers present on almost every airbase.
Araz