The Ministry of National Defense yesterday condemned rumors, believed to have originated from China, alleging that a missing Taiwanese F-16 jet and its pilot had defected to China.
The F-16, piloted by Colonel Chiang Cheng-chih (蔣正志), disappeared from radar at 6:07pm on Tuesday, two minutes after taking off from Hualien Air Base, as the search for the missing jet continued yesterday, the ministry said.
The jet disappeared over waters just off the coast of Hualien County, it said.
Photo: CNA
Soon after the incident, comments online claimed that the jet and its pilot had defected to China, landing at Xiamen Airport in China’s Fujian Province.
“Extra! An F-16 has landed at Xiamen Airport,” a user wrote on the Chinese microblogging Web site Sina Weibo, with a photograph of an F-16.
“Stop searching now. It is at Xiamen air base,” another user wrote on Twitter.
The ministry said that there was no such evidence to support the claims, attributing them to Internet sources backed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“The rumors spread by the CCP’s Internet army are despicable. We have debunked these self-deceiving and narcissistic rumors,” Ministry of National Defense Yen De-fa (嚴德發) said yesterday.
“Mrs Chiang also heard the rumors, and she was furious,” Yen said, adding that the pilot’s wife described her husband as a hero and said she was proud of him.
Spreading rumors only ignites a sense of patriotism and a will to fight among Taiwanese soldiers, Yen said.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) called the rumors “absurd and inhumane.”
A military source said it would be extremely difficult for a Chinese or Taiwanese plane to defect to the other side due to the use of advanced radar systems.
Taiwan’s air force would intercept such unplanned movements, as would China, the source said.
The F-16 also took off from eastern Taiwan, which is farther from China, and it was accompanied by other planes during the training mission, the source said.
The military has detected the source of nine signals in the area where the plane might have crashed, which it has given to a salvage ship commissioned by the ministry to investigate, Yen said.
The military said it believed the signals originated from parts of the aircraft.
The salvage ship on Thursday completed an initial investigation of seven signal sources and was to cover the remaining two yesterday, Yen said.
Experts are to analyze the signals to confirm which ones, if any, are from the plane before starting an underwater search, he said.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS