A locally developed uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) on Thursday evening crashed at a forest park in eastern Taiwan. No injuries have been reported.
The drone reportedly destroyed several trees and broke into pieces.
Firefighters rushed to the scene after receiving calls from eyewitnesses..
Photo courtesy of a reader via CNA
About 90 minutes later, the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology issued a statement saying that the UAV was its Teng Yun drone.
“The Teng Yun made a forced landing at Taitung Forest Park at 6:33pm due to a control system malfunction. It took off from Taitung’s Chihhang Air Base in the afternoon for routine training,” the statement said, adding that no one was hurt in the incident.
Institute personnel had cleaned up the crash site and would analyze the flight data collected to ascertain the reasons for the crash, the statement said.
The vehicle was a prototype of the Teng Yun drone, which was later dedicated only to test flights and personnel training, it said, adding that the incident would not affect the development of other large drones.
The Teng Yun is a medium-altitude, long-endurance drone first developed in 2015 by the institute, the Ministry of National Defense’s primary research and development center. An upgraded version of the drone made its public debut in 2019 and completed a rare long-distance test flight off Taitung over the Pacific a year later.
According to the institute, the new Teng Yun, similar to the US-made MQ-9 drone, is capable of automatic takeoff and landing, multi-vehicle control, ground network control and real-time video transmission.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai