Patrol boats and helicopters continued searching off Taiwan's eastern coast yesterday for an F-5F jet fighter which lost radio contact shortly after taking off from a Taiwan Air Force base Friday.
A spokesman for the Chih-hang air base in the eastern county of Taitung said two 600-tonne coast guard patrol boats had been dispatched to replace smaller ships in a search and rescue mission because bad weather was hampering the smaller vessels.
The twin-seater fighter jet took off from the air base Friday afternoon and lost contact with the control tower at 3:08pm. An Air Force General Headquarters press statement said the aircraft went missing 110km northeast of Taitung.
"No trace of the jet or its two pilots has been discovered so far," said Chang Ching-yuan, director of the political warfare division at the Chih-hang air base, some 300km southeast of Taipei.
Chang said an air force special investigative team had been posted at the Chih-hang air base to probe the cause of the accident.
"Initial investigations show that the fighter might have mistakenly entered an area of cloud cover while practicing a turn," Chang said.
According to Chang, an accompanying F-5E jet fighter immediately alerted the ill-fated plane upon noticing that it was veering into the cloud cover.
"The pilot aboard the F-5E heard a vague answer from the F-5F which then disappeared from the air base's radar screen and lost radio contact," Chang explained, adding that the altitude for Friday's training flight was set at a range between 22,000ft and 14,000ft and that the cloud cover hovered around the 14,000ft level during the training time.
Chang said it remains unclear why the missing plane had made a wider-than-normal turn.
"Mechanical failure, human error and environmental problems are all possible causes," he noted, adding that if the final response from the missing fighter can be decoded, the reasons behind the disappearance can probably be determined.
Senior flight instructors said cloud cover is widely seen as "off-limits" for fighter jets because pilots are prone to lose their sense of direction in such circumstances.
Military aircraft usually shun cloud cover except for certain difficult training missions.
Friday's training courses were mainly for practicing equipment operations. The missing pilots were identified as Major Lee Chih-min (李致民), 36, and Captain Kang Hung-chou (康宏州), 31.
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
RSS