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PETALING JAYA: An American plane impersonated the transponder code of a Malaysian plane while flying over the disputed South China Sea, according to a report.
Tech magazine Popular Mechanics said this was spotted by the Chinese government think tank SCS Probing Initiative, which posted its findings on Twitter.
The think tank said the RC-135W Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft had left the US Kadena airbase on Japan’s Okinawa island at 3 a.m. on Wednesday, before turning off its transponder shortly thereafter.
“The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Mode-S number of the aircraft, a 24-bit identifier assigned to all aircraft and transmitted by the onboard transponder, was AE01CE,” the report says.
Later, a plane appeared on the same route with a different Mode-S number of 750548, which belongs to an unknown Malaysian plane, entering the Yellow Sea and flying over from 5am to 11am.
“The RC-135W, call sign RAINY51, then flew on a race track between Hainan Island and the Paracel Islands, an archipelago in the South China Sea that China claims but whose ownership is in dispute,” he said.
The report said that the RC-135W Rivet Joint is a converted Boeing 707 aircraft designed to collect electronic intelligence for analysis.
He said planes sometimes mistakenly transmit the wrong Mode-S number, though he said it was highly unlikely that the American plane had accidentally changed its transponder code.
He said it was unclear why the American plane flew into the area.
Parts of the South China Sea are subject to rival claims from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, while Beijing claims the entire canal.
Rival claims to the sea, which straddles vital shipping lanes and covers rich fishing grounds, make it a potential flash point for conflict.
China and Asean, of which four plaintiffs are members, are currently in talks for a code of conduct in the area.
More recently, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and Chief Security Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob had met with China’s Defense Minister to discuss the issue of the South China Sea, among other matters.
