Thu Nov 12, 2015 2:31pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. B-52 strategic bomber flew over Chinese manmade islands in the South China Sea recently and was contacted by Chinese ground controllers but continued its mission undeterred, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

"We conduct B-52 flights in international air space in that part of the world all the time," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told a briefing. "My understanding is there was one B-52 flight, I'm not even sure the date on it, but there was an effort made by Chinese ground controllers to reach out to that aircraft and that aircraft continued its mission. ... Nothing changed."

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati and David Alexander; Editing by Doina Chiacu)