The navy demonstrated to the media for the first time yesterday the operation of a remote-controlled underwater mine-hunting vehicle.
The vehicle, called the Pinguin, was purchased from Germany 11 years ago and is still the best of its kind in the navy.
At the same time, the navy showed off the ship that carries the underwater vehicle. Both the Pinguin and its Yung Feng-class mother ship were made by German companies. The hardware entered service in 1991. Each ship carries one or two Pinguins.
The vehicle has been much written about, both for its advanced mine-hunting capabilities and for its connection with a murder. The mother ship and the Pinguin made headlines after they were considered to be connected with the murder of Captain Yin Ching-feng (
An investigation by police at the time showed Yin, then director of the navy's weapons procurement office, may have been murdered because of a spare-parts deal he was handling.
The deal covered the navy's plan to purchase spare parts for the Yung Feng-class ship, whose German manufacturer stopped supplying parts to Taiwan after details of the ship's purchase were exposed by Taiwan's media.
The situation stemmed from an agreement between Taiwan and Germany that the ship deal be kept secret. Germany did not want to make public the purchase for fear of upsetting China.
As a result, the sale agreement listed the four Yung Feng-class ships as offshore oil-rig support vessels under the control of state-run Chinese Petroleum Corporation (CPC,
After the ship purchase was exposed by the media, the navy had to look for other channels for the provision of spare parts for the both the ships and the Pinguin.
Because of the spare-parts shortage, the Pinguin was said to be inoperable. Now, eight years after the murder of Yin and 11 years after the Pinguin entered service, the navy has lifted the shroud of secrecy surrounding the mine hunter.
During the demonstration, the navy allowed members of the media to step aboard the Yung Feng-class ships for a cruise off of Kaohsiung, where a Pinguin was dropped into the sea to simulate a mine-hunting operation.
In addition to mine clearing, the Pinguin allows the navy to search for crashed planes or sunken ships on the ocean floor.
The Pinguin can search for underwater objects with an on-board TV camera. The images from the vehicle can be sent back to the mother ship in real time via a fiber-optic cable.
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