A second Australian military aircraft was dispatched over contested waters in the South China Sea last month, just hours after the Chinese air force conducted a "dangerous interception" of another RAAF plane.
Defence is refusing to discuss the May 26 incident further, but flight data obtained by the ABC reveals new details of the dramatic flight as well as other recent Defence Force maritime surveillance missions being flown out of the Clark Air Base in the Philippines.
Earlier this month, the Defence Department revealed an RAAF P-8 Poseidon was "intercepted by a Chinese J-16 fighter aircraft" during what it described as "routine maritime surveillance activity" in international airspace in the South China Sea region.
Defence Minister Richard Marles later described how the J-16 flew close to the side of the P-8 Poseidon while releasing flares, then "accelerated and cut across" the front of the RAAF surveillance aircraft.
"At that moment, it then released a bundle of chaff which contained small pieces of aluminium, some of which were ingested into the engine of the P-8 aircraft," Mr Marles told reporters earlier this month.
Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data records the RAAF aircraft involved was P-8 Poseidon A47-008, which departed the Clark Air Base at about 11:23am Canberra time on May 26.
The P-8 Poseidon, operating under the call sign ASY189, was initially tracked heading south-west from the Philippines towards the South China Sea before eventually flying out of detection range.
Just over three hours later, the P-8 Poseidon came back within detection range as it returned to the Philippines following its "dangerous" encounter with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) fighter aircraft.
ADS-B data compiled by Canadian researcher Steffan Watkins reveals the total length of the interrupted surveillance flight was roughly five hours, of which three hours were spent "out of range" in the South China Sea.
"They were not squawking 7700 [the emergency code] on their return, no emergency was declared," Mr Watkins notes in his analysis of the RAAF's recent movements from Clark Air Base.
The ADS-B data does not precisely track where the P-8 flew in the South China Sea, but Beijing claims it "endangered" China's national security and sovereignty when it "stepped up close-up reconnaissance into airspace of the Paracel Islands", a disputed archipelago.
P-8 Poseidon A47-008 did not conduct another surveillance mission until June 2, a week after its confrontation with the PLA jet but another P-8 Poseidon, A47-007, flew out the following day towards the South China Sea.
After resuming surveillance duties on June 2, Poseidon A47-008 conducted another flight from Clark Air Base on June 3, before being deployed to India on June 8 for "joint maritime surveillance activities" with that country's navy.
The RAAF has deployed two P-8A Poseidons to Clark Air Base to conduct intelligence collection activities over the South China Sea, and to help the Philippines government with the fight against Islamic State.
The Defence Department has not responded to several specific questions from the ABC about the deployment to the Philippines.
