A salvage mission to locate and retrieve the black box of a missing Mirage 2000 fighter jet is to resume next week pending good weather, after poor weather conditions rendered unsuccessful an attempt this week, an unnamed air force official said yesterday.
The official said that Dragon Prince Hydro-Survey Enterprise, the Kaohsiung-based company that won the contract for the mission, embarked on the first marine salvage mission on Monday last week.
However, due to poor weather conditions and heavy seas, the team moored in Keelung Port on Wednesday last week empty-handed, the official said.
The contractor factored in safety conditions and poor visibility before deciding to to suspend the mission, the official said.
The mission is scheduled to resume next week if the weather permits, the official said.
Since the airplane’s disappearance 25 days ago, the air force has located a signal 145km north-northeast of Keelung that is similar to the signal emitted by a Mirage 2000 black box.
There have been no further developments in attempts to retrieve the black box of the jet piloted by Captain Ho Tzu-yu (何子雨) since it went missing on Nov. 7.
The Control Yuan filed an application on Nov. 20 to look into the case, aiming to determine whether the aircraft’s disappearance was caused by mechanical failure or human error.
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