I said that if they were so near Japan when they were shot, how come they did not even notice that fact too. May be in Russian air space you may indeed be out of reach of air traffic tracing radars (although highly unlikely out of reach of russian air traffic tracing radars which would immediately warn you if you deviate - many Europe-Asia route foreign passenger planes indeed use Russian air space but they never were in trouble). So, if even to assume that by some reason they did not see russian radar signals, they could not miss Japanese "beacons".

There are many inconsistensies in "non-spying" version to make it true. Although, I agree that there may be many inconsistencies in "spying" version too.

Frankly, I think, we are not competent enough to take sides in this story because we do not have enough facts to judge.

And don't forget the history - the fact is that US was airspying over Russia several times, while Russia did not.

• it was easy to be "on the ground" spying in USA back then - carefuluniverse - December 16, 2001 - 07:34 UTC