Pentagon making contingency plans to return crew

CNN has obtained this photo of some of the crew members

From Jamie McIntyre
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon won't discuss any details publicly, but officials are quietly making plans to quickly bring the 24 crew members of the EP-3 surveillance plane back to the United States if they are released from Chinese custody.

Pentagon officials say a military transport plane is standing by at the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, but that the most likely scenario is that a civilian charter plane would be used.

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"Whatever the Chinese agree to, we'll make work," a senior Pentagon official said Friday.

Officials say tentative plans would be for the plane to pick up the 24 crew members at the civilian airport in Haikou on Hainan Island, China -- not the military airstrip where the EP-3 plane landed -- and fly them directly to Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Pentagon officials stress that no final plans have been made because the progress of the negotiations is uncertain.

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Government Information Office, Republic of China

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