The United States Navy says that a Chinese Navy destroyer targeted a U.S. patrol aircraft with a laser last week while it was flying over the Philippine Sea, about 600 kilometers west of Guam.The U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a statement that a Chinese ship trained the laser on the American P-8A Poseidon aircraft in an “unsafe” and “unprofessional manner,” while the P-8 was operation “in international airspace in accordance with international rules and regulations.”The U.S. Navy said the Chinese action was in violation of the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), a multilateral agreement reached in 2014, and also inconsistent with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and China defense departments on safety of air and maritime encounters, the statement said.The laser was captured by a sensor onboard the P-8A and was not visible to the naked eye.“Weapons-grade lasers could potentially cause serious harm to aircrew and mariners, as well as ship and aircraft systems,” the Navy said.The P-8A Poseidon is deployed to Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, Japan and conducts routine operations, maritime patrol, and reconnaissance in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations.
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