The air force lost an anti-aircraft machine gun barrel under mysterious circumstances last November and has failed to recover any trace of the barrel, according to defense officials.
The lost barrel was a reserve barrel for a 20mm anti-aircraft gun that belonged to the 206th anti-aircraft artillery battalion of the air force's 499th wing in Hsinchu, the sole Mirage 2000-5 fighter wing of the air force.
The barrel was reported missing as it was removed from one barracks to another at the air base along with many other items, the air force general headquarters (AFGH) said.
"It is hard to believe that a machine gun barrel, which is much larger than a rifle, could have been stolen during the removal process. But we have to admit that the removal task was not done in perfect order," said an official with the AFGH.
"The 499th wing has searched all over the camp in an attempt to recover the lost barrel but in vain," the official said. The Taoyuan military court has taken over the investigation of the case.
The official could not explain how a machine gun barrel -- an object too large to be carried away unnoticed -- could have disappeared in front of the many soldiers involved in the removal process.
He also said that they could not figure out why it might have been stolen, given that it holds little commercial value.
He declined to confirm whether initial investigations by the 499th wing had uncovered certain problems existing in the 206 battalion, which might be related to the disappearance.
According to another air force official, there is a significant amount of tension between soldiers and their superiors in the 206th battalion.
"Many soldiers in the company complained that their superiors, including the company's leader, had been treating them unfairly. They said some of their superiors had refused to grant them leave that was due to them," the official said.
"It might be too early to guess, but the gun barrel might have been stolen as a means to take revenge against the company's officers -- we can't rule out that possibility, since similar incidents have happened before," he said.
No matter what the motives might be behind the mysterious missing gun barrel, the officers of the company, including the battalion leader, all stand to be punished over the incident.
The officers involved are still serving in their current positions, pending the outcome of the Taoyuan military court's investigation, after which any punishments will be meted out.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS