An early warning aircraft, which was severely damaged in an accident caused by human error three years ago, has recently been shipped back to Taiwan and is expected to return to service later this month, the air force said yesterday.
The No. 2503 E-2T is undergoing a series of tests at an air base in Pingtung County, which is home to four E-2Ts acquired from the US in 1995.
"If the plane passes all the tests, it will return to service by the end of this month," said a spokesman with the Air Force General Headquarters, who declined to be identified.
The spokesman declined to reveal the costs for the repair of the aircraft, but a local Chinese-language newspaper said the costs were between US$25 million and US$30 million, approximately the same as the price of a brand new F-16 jet fighter.
Repairs to the E-2T, which were done in the US, spanned three-and-a-half years, causing the air force to rely more heavily on the other three E-2T aircraft during that period.
The accident occurred in March 1997, as the plane was carrying out a night-time emergency landing drill at the Pingtung air base. The pilot forgot to lower the plane's landing gear, causing considerable damage to the fuselage as well as to sophisticated equipment on board.
The repair of the aircraft included the replacement of the fuselage as well as an overhaul of certain equipment.
The incident prompted the air force to develop a cheap but effective alarm system for the E-2Ts, which alerts the pilot to any failure to lower the landing gear before the plane touches down. The alarm system, costing around US$900 per unit, is low-tech but efficient.
Taiwan bought the four E-2Ts at a total cost of around NT$10 billion in a deal reached between Taiwan and the US in 1993, taking delivery of the planes in two batches in September 1995.
Taiwan placed an order last year for two more E-2Ts, with delivery of the planes set to take place in 2004.
With the E-2Ts cruising over Taiwan almost around the clock every day, the air defense capability of the island has been upgraded considerably since the commissioning of the aircraft in December 1995. Before the E-2Ts became operational, Taiwan did not have any "eyes in the sky" to monitor aircraft movements across the Taiwan Strait in China.
With the E-2Ts, Taiwan's air force can detect and track virtually all Chinese fighter planes taking off from their bases within a radius of 500km from Taiwan.
The E-2Ts were first put to semi-combat use during the missile crisis in the Taiwan Strait in March 1996, as they worked in joint efforts with an E-8 or "Joint-Stars" reconnaissance aircraft of the US to track M-class missiles fired from China into waters off Taiwan.
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