HMS Astute
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Read more: Chinese Top Gun 'Barrel Rolled' Over US Plane22/08/2014
The US has lodged a formal protest with Beijing after a Chinese fighter jet conducted a barrel roll "very, very close" over an American Navy plane this week, the Pentagon has said.
Rear Admiral John Kirby said the Chinese plane exposed its undercarriage to show that it was armed to the P-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft during Monday's incident in international airspace near Japan.
He said the Chinese aircraft came within 30ft (9 metres) of the American plane, while the wing tips of the two aircraft were just 20ft apart.
Adm Kirby described the close encounter as "pretty aggressive, very unprofessional and unsafe".
The US plane is said by defence officials to have been conducting routine surveillance of the Chinese coast over the East China Sea at the time of its encounter with the Su-27 interceptor jet.
Adm Kirby told a regular press conference on Friday: "We have registered our strong concerns to the Chinese about the unsafe and unprofessional intercept which posed a risk to the safety and the wellbeing of the air crew and was inconsistent with customary international law.