The nation’s elite aviation units suffered another embarrassment when an officer at the 602nd Air Cavalry Brigade was found to have taken his pilot’s helmet for an AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopter off base without authorization and taken it home.
The debacle came to light after photographs of the pilot, a first lieutenant, and his girlfriend wearing the high-tech helmet were uploaded to the Internet, and netizens began to circulate it, saying it was another breach of discipline and security in the military.
News reports indicated the pilot had been trained to fly the US-made helicopters for a squadron based at the 602nd Brigade, which is in the Sinshe area (新社) of Taichung.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The 602nd is one of the army’s three main elite aviation units, along with the 601st Brigade and the Pingtung-based Altitude Special Service Company.
According to an internal military investigation, the transgression occurred in 2013, when the pilot in question took home the helmet when he was assigned for helicopter flight-training at an aviation base in Hengchun (恆春), Pingtung County.
“On the way to the air base, the pilot made a stopover at his girlfriend’s house in Pingtung. The girlfriend was curious about the pilot’s headgear and she put it on, and posed for photographs with it at her home,” Army Command Headquarters Office spokesperson Major General Huang Kai-shen (黃開森) said.
Huang said the helmet for the AH-1W Super Cobra has only simple communication devices, and does not contain the advanced visual sensors and weapons controls of the Integrated Helmet and Display Sight System of the Apache AH-64E attack helicopter.
Huang confirmed the pilot was also carrying four pieces of netting used to camouflage military vehicles, which he left at his girlfriend’s house.
Media and netizens also circulated photographs of the pilot displaying a photograph of three shells from a T-25 artillery gun, which angered more people, who said it was evidence of a lax attitude to the handling of equipment and ammunition because he had taken them off base to show to civilians.
“The pilot in question has been grounded from flying and, pending the conclusion of our investigation, he will receive punishment in accordance with military regulations,” Huang said.
Huang said the artillery shells had not been in the pilot’s possession.
“Those came from a friend, surnamed Chen (陳). He picked up the unexploded rounds from a target range and sent the pictures by e-mail, so the pilot was not in possession of the artillery shells,” Huang said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) denounced what he called the misconduct and lack of discipline of the nation’s troops when he questioned Deputy Minister of National Defense Admiral Chen Yung-kang (陳永康) at the legislature yesterday.
“Officers and soldiers are handling weapons and equipment as though they are toys. Military bases are now like playgrounds for these men,” Lee said.
“How can the public have trust and confidence in the armed forces?” he asked.
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
RSS