The German manufacturer of a heavyweight torpedo that the navy secretly bought over a decade ago has sent representatives to Taiwan to help the navy find out why one of these torpedoes went out of control during the Sept. 4 Hankuang No. 19 exercise, but without success, defense sources said yesterday.
The German representatives and the navy failed to reach an agreement on why the SUT torpedo went out of control in the Hankuang No. 19 exercise.
An argument flared up in a recent meeting about the incident at the navy's general headquarters after navy representatives said that the torpedo might be a defective product.
The German representatives insisted that their product operates perfectly if the users strictly follow the instructions in the torpedo's manual, defense sources said.
With the two sides pointing fingers at each other, the real reasons why the torpedo malfunctioned remains a mystery.
The torpedo was the first live one that the navy had fired from a submarine in 15 years. It had been launched from one of the navy's two modern submarines and was supposed to hit a decommissioned Yang-class destroyer. The torpedo went out of control after the launch because a wire that connected it to the submarine snapped, according to the navy. It is still uncertain why the wire broke.
The out-of-control torpedo prompted the submarine to dive deeper to avoid being hit. The torpedo was missing for hours, but was recovered later the same evening at a beach in Ilan.
While the real cause of the incident remains unknown, the navy is on the verge of promoting some officials who could be held responsible if the torpedo were discovered to have malfunctioned because of human error, sources said.
Rear-Admiral Shen Po-chih (
Shen, who was responsible for arranging the navy's ma-neuvers in the exercise, is sche-duled to be promoted to Vice-Admiral next month at the earliest. He specializes in submarine warfare, being one of the followers of former navy commander-in-chief and incumbent Chief of the General Staff Admiral Li Chieh (
Shen's planned promotion has raised some eyebrows in the navy. Opposing naval officials have said that Shen's promotion should be held back until he is cleared of responsibility for the incident.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS