The army yesterday acknowledged that a glitch in the timing of of live-fire shooting during the last round of the Hankuang No. 19 exercise in mid-May in Ilan had endangered helicopters by letting them approach an area of dangerous ground fire.
A fatal accident could have happened if the attack helicopters had not turned around in time.
The helicopters were about to fire missiles and rockets toward surface targets in coordination with artillery weapons firing from the shore. Due to a delay in the process, the helicopters and artillery troops did not fire at their designated times. The result was that as artillery troops were firing toward sea targets, the helicopters nearly flew through across the path of the artillery shells.
The army refused to identify the cause of the delay. It emphasized the same mistake will not happen again.
"The delay was only for a short time. We used time to control the firing of weapons from the air and ground. But it was apparent that the time control developed some problems," a spokesman for the army said.
"We launched meetings to discuss the accident after the exercise. We have found out some solutions. The same mistake will not happen during the second round of Hankuang No. 19 exercises to be held on Sept. 1," the spokesman said.
The army spokesman was responding to reports by the Liberty Times and Central News Agency on the incident. He confirmed the reports, which seemed to have quoted from the same anonymous sources.
The incident happened in mid-May as the first round of Hankuang No. 19 exercise took place in Ilan. It was the first time that the annual Hankuang-series exercises were held twice in a year. The second round of Hankuang No. 19 is scheduled for Sept. 1, also in Ilan.
At the time, a number of AH-1Ws and OH-58Ds armed helicopters took off from landing zones at the naval port in Suao, heading for a neighboring beach for coordinated live fire shootings against surface targets.
These helicopters were supposed to stay over the beach, where a variety of artillery weapons were concentrated, to fire missiles and rockets toward surface targets in coordination with friendly artillery fire.
Because of delay in the process, as the helicopters were about to reach the designated area, their pilots found they were flying into a network of fire from the ground.
Pilots of the helicopters turned around in time to avoid a possible casualty from the friendly fire.
But what remains a mystery is the cause of the delay, which could have resulted in deadly consequences.
It was reported that the delay was caused by a target drone which lost control and fell into the sea after launch from a nearby mountain. After the target drone fell into sea, all the live-fire shootings were halted for several minutes.
As the shootings resumed several minutes later, the original procedure of the exercise might have changed a little, causing confusion to participating troops, reports said.
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