National security and military officials scrambled to provide explanations after aviation police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport temporarily held up an outbound shipment of components for missile warheads on a civilian flight to the US.
Officers from the Aviation Police Bureau, which is in charge of criminal investigation and security at airports, blocked the shipment of 28 missile warhead parts on China Airlines’ (CAL, 中華航空) Flight CI-006 from Taoyuan to Los Angeles.
The military cargo, which weighed a total of 2,500kg, was temporarily seized by aviation police at the CAL cargo warehouse on Wednesday night due to incomplete shipping documentation.
Photo: Taipei Times
Its bill of lading indicated the cargo items, labeled as “Guidance Section, Guided Missile,” came from the Ministry of National Defense, the airline said.
The incident raised alarms at national security, aviation, foreign affairs and other government ministries because it was highly unusual for missile warhead parts to be carried on a civilian flight bound for the US, and led to concerns about terrorism.
However, air force officials said that the cargo posed no danger and that the parts were from the guidance system of AIM-120 missile warheads, which were being sent back to their US manufacturer for repairs after material failures and fissures were discovered on them.
After the news came to light, government officials and legislators blamed the military and the airline for what they called “an embarrassing incident,” accusing them of negligence and carelessness by revealing flight details involving sensitive matters relating to national security.
Media reports said it was the first known instance of missile components on outbound flights being flagged by aviation police, as in the past these shipments were handled in secrecy and no problem had occurred.
Military experts said that most smaller military cargoes being sent out of the country went on flights out of Greater Kaohsiung’s Siaogang Airport, while larger weapons, such as Patriot missiles, were sent via maritime shipping, usually by Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運), adding that these were handled in strict secrecy.
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday issued a press statement saying: “The cargo was electronic components of a missile guidance system to be returned to the US for repairs. It did not contain explosives, and was not dangerous.”
The air force had signed a letter of guarantee, stating there were no safety concerns over the goods, and presented other shipping documents to CAL on Friday last week, and the cargo had passed inspection at the Kaohsiung Customs Administration on Tuesday, according to the statement.
It went on to say that the letter had not been included in the cargo’s documents when it was transferred to Taoyuan airport, leading to the goods being held by the aviation police.
“As of today, the necessary documents were presented and the inspection checks completed, and thus the cargo was shipped to the US manufacturer by cargo plane on a later flight,” the police said.
The statement blamed CAL for not having the complete shipping documents in its possession upon inspection.
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