A stalling engine and a winch failure were among the issues being investigated after a Mirage 2000 crashed on Tuesday night off Hsinchu County, the air force told a news conference yesterday.
Captain Hsieh Pei-hsun (謝沛勳) of the Second Tactical Fighter Wing was piloting the Mirage after taking off from Hsinchu Air Force Base at about 8pm on Tuesday on a scheduled night-flight exercise, the air force said.
Hsieh ejected when the engine stalled during the return journey and he was picked up from the sea about two hours later, it said, although there was an issue with a winch on the rescue helicopter, forcing a transfer to a coast guard vessel.
Photo: Wu Che-yu, Taipei Times
While it is certain that the Mirage engine had stalled, whether that was the leading cause of the incident has yet to be ascertained, said the air force’s inspector-general, a major general surnamed Chen (陳).
All of the Mirage jets at the base have been grounded while they are checked and a task force is investigating the incident, the air force said.
It refused to comment on the progress of preliminary investigations, citing the need for a professional review and cross-branch collaboration.
Reporters asked whether the engine could have stalled due a bird strike during the Mirage’s previous mission, the air force said that the engine had been inspected upon landing from its previous mission and just before Hsieh took off on Tuesday.
A Sikorsky 70-C helicopter was sent to extract Hsieh from the water, but it could not reel in its cradle after getting him strapped in, the air force said.
The helicopter took Hsieh to one of the two Coast Guard Administration ships that were at the rescue site, it added.
The air force said that it is investigating the winch incident.
Air Force Command Headquarters Department of Logistics Major General Tian Chung-yi (田忠儀) said that the air force had asked the subcontractor that manufactures winches for Sikorsky 70-Cs to disassemble the one that failed and determine what caused the incident.
Reporters asked why Hsieh was wearing a green flight suit — normally reserved for combat missions — instead of an orange one, which denotes training exercises.
All air force pilots have been ordered to wear combat-ready green flight suits in preparation for scrambles due to activity by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force, Chen said.
Asked whether the single engine on Mirages makes them more dangerous, Tian said that the designer no doubt considered pilot safety when creating the plane.
Asked how it would respond if Martin-Baker, which manufactures the ejector seats in Mirages, approached it to offer Hsieh a lifetime membership in its Ejection Tie Club, the air force said that it had not received any information from the company.
The air force has budgeted NT$11 billion (US$342.63 million) to upgrade the M53-P2 engines on its fleet of Mirages.
The upgrade is expected to be completed in 2028.
Additional reporting by Wu Che-yu, Liu Yu-jie and CNA
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS