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.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
RSS