Initial indications are that a mechanical malfunction likely caused a Mirage 2000-5 fighter jet to crash off the coast of southeastern Taiwan yesterday, the air force said, as the search for the jet continued.
Based on information from the pilot, who ejected to safety, the jet’s engine was not generating enough power to operate the aircraft safely, air force Chief Inspector Major General Liu Hui-chien (柳惠千) told a news conference.
However, exactly what caused the problem cannot be determined until after the jet’s wreckage has been recovered, Liu said.
Photo: CNA
Lieutenant Colonel Huang Chung-kai (黃重凱), 38, ejected from the aircraft when he noticed the lack of power and landed in the ocean, before being rescued and taken to Taitung Mackay Memorial Hospital, Liu said.
Taitung Mackay Memorial doctors said that Huang was in good health, but they planned to keep him under observation for 48 hours as a precaution in case he developed a lung infection, as he had inhaled some sea water.
The Mirage 2000-5 fighter, serial number 2017, took off from Taitung Air Base at 10:08am on a routine training session.
Photo courtesy of Chao Chien-po
At 11:05am, Huang reported to the base, saying that his jet was experiencing a “mechanical malfunction.”
He ejected at 11:26am, about 10 nautical miles (18.52km) south of Taitung Air Base.
He was rescued at 12:06pm by a UH-60M helicopter, which landed at the base at 12:13pm.
Liu praised Huang for making the call to eject after some preparation and at no lower than 609.6m as recommended, saying that it was what prevented Huang from being injured.
The crashed fighter was manufactured on Feb. 26, 1998, and it last cleared routine inspections on Sept. 29 last year, the air force said.
Huang has logged 1,434 flying hours, with 1,125 hours clocked flying Mirage 2000-5s, it said.
The air force has grounded its Mirage 2000-5 fleet, which would be inspected before being cleared to fly again, Liu said.
Domestically built Indigenous Defense Fighters (IDFs) and F-16s would temporarily take over the Mirage 2000-5 fleet’s duties in responding to incursions into the nation’s air defense identification zone by Chinese military aircraft, Liu said.
To lessen the burden on the IDFs and F-16s while the Mirage 2000-5 fleet is down, the air force would reduce training sessions for those two types of aircraft, he said.
Yesterday’s incident was the eighth involving a Mirage 2000-5 jet since the air force began using them in 1997.
Of those, there were six crashes that left five pilots dead.
The previous crash was in November 2017 when a Mirage 2000 piloted by captain Ho Tzu-yu (何子雨) went missing at sea off the coast of Keelung.
Ho’s body has never been found, and he was declared dead six months later. The jet’s black box was retrieved two years later.
Taiwan now has 54 Mirage 2000-5s.
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