Runways at seven airports are to be widened to make them more resilient to a potential missile attack from China, a source from the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday.
Ministry officials and US advisers made the decision after reviewing data from Han Kuang military exercises, the source said, adding that runways would be widened to 60m.
The adjustment would allow runways to more quickly be repaired so that fighter jets could take off and land, and would make the runways usable by B-52 bombers and large transport aircraft, the source said.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
In a combat scenario, China would likely target Taiwan’s air bases, so the ministry is preparing by widening runways and performing annual repair drills, the source said.
The runway of the Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base in Taichung, which was originally built with the assistance of the US military, is 60m wide, as it was built to accommodate B-52 bombers. It was decided that runways at Taiwan’s other bases, which are 45m to 50m in width, should be widened to match that of Ching Chuan Kang, the source said.
“If runways are hit by surface-to-surface missiles or other weapons during wartime, takeoff and landing operations might be paralyzed — so we need to be prepared for that,” the source said.
Assuming that a runway is struck by Chinese ballistic missiles with an accuracy of less than 50m and a destruction radius of 25m, six missiles would give China an 80 percent chance of destroying the runway, the source said.
Potentially, China could destroy a runway with two missiles fired in short succession at a target with a radius of 100m, the source said.
“It’s not guaranteed that China would hit its target, but we must be ready to restore a runway should it be hit, and widening runways is the best way to accomplish that,” the source said.
The main runways of air bases have shoulders and buffer zones about 7.5m to 15m in width, which could be quickly reinforced by widening them, the source said.
Air force personnel have undergone runway repair training in the US, as well as at Ching Chuan Kang, the source said.
“During the last drill, the army’s unexploded ordinance disposal team used 18kg of TNT to blast holes in the base’s taxiway, simulating an enemy attack,” the source said. “The blast created a 2m-deep hole with a radius of 20m that teams used for the drill, which involved removing foreign objects, laying fiberglass repair kits, backfilling the crater and compacting it.”
During the drill, a minimum operating strip with a length of 1.5km and a width of 15m was opened to allow the resumption of aircraft takeoffs and landings in the shortest possible time, the source said.
Air force personnel have shortened runway repair times from four hours for one or large crater repair operations, down to 2.5 hours, the source said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS