Families Fret For Loved Ones

Near the home base of the downed U.S. spy plane, residents of Oak Harbor, Wash. nearly exhausted the town's supply of yellow ribbon Thursday, tying bows on trees and street signs in support of the crew being held in China.

"We may be down to using 3M sticky pads," said Chuck Niedzialkowski of the family support center at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, where the crew is based.

The 21 men and three women have been held since Sunday, when their plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet and made an emergency landing on Hainan Island.

And in the southeast corner of South Dakota, people in tiny Parkston were tying yellow ribbons to anything that didn't move, from antennas to air conditioners, reports CBS News Corespondent Jerry Bowen.

Parkston is where Lt. Shane Osborn spent time as a boy, and here he's considered a hero. Lt. Osborn is the pilot who landed the crippled spy plane safely.

His aunt Marcia Lee's been spreading the news. "He's a hell of a pilot to be able to land that plane. It had two engines out. The nose was off. The wing was damaged and they had no wing flaps. He dropped 8,000 feet immediately. How in hell he landed it nobody knows."

When Osborn and the others left their home base last month, it was considered the start of another routine mission.

Nothing's considered routine now, especially back in Parkston.

"We're scared to death. We're scared to death. The first couple of days all I could do was cry and just worry and worry and then you go through. You're mad! You're like what is taking so long," said Marcia Lee.

And now the word that somewhere on far away Hainan Island, China that Osborn is being held separately from the rest of the crew.

Unsettling news to his grandmother Betty Rieck. "I really know he can survive. I don't know what they'll do to him. I worry about that. But he's a survivor."

And he's on the minds of a lot of folks. "Just sitting up and you're watching TV all the time and just waiting and waiting and waiting and you're going stir crazy. This might not be much but at least we feel like we're doing something. I think Shane would be proud of us," said Marcia Lee.