Military experts on Tuesday said that the ejection seats on the air force’s F-5E jets are outdated and should be replaced, after a mid-air collision of two of the jets the previous day left one pilot dead and another missing.
The two F-5E jets collided over Pingtung County during a training mission on Monday afternoon, about 30 minutes after taking off from Taitung Airbase at 2:30pm with two other fighters.
One of the pilots of the ill-fated aircraft, First Lieutenant Lo Shang-hua (羅尚樺), had ejected from the plane and was found at sea by a search and rescue team at 4:41pm, but he was pronounced dead after arrival at a hospital.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
Captain Pan Ying-chun (潘穎諄), the pilot of the other plane, is believed to have also ejected, and he remained missing as of press time last night.
An initial investigation indicated that Lo had died of a brain hemorrhage sustained during the crash, Taitung Chief Prosecutor Tseng Yang-ling (曾揚嶺) said.
The circumstances of Lo’s death were similar to those of another pilot, Chu Kuan-meng (朱冠甍), who was killed in an F-5E crash in October last year.
Chu had ejected from his aircraft and was rescued, but was later pronounced dead, with brain hemorrhage listed as the cause of death.
Lo and Chu were likely killed when they ejected from the aircraft and their heads hit the cockpit roof because of the outdated design of the F-5E’s ejection seat, military experts said.
The F-5E ejection seats are more than 40 years old, which means safe ejection is possible only if the plane has reached a certain altitude and airspeed, and is flying at a certain angle, Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a senior analyst at the government-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told reporters.
Under any other circumstances, the pilot’s head is likely to hit the cockpit cover, rendering him unconscious or causing his death, Su said.
The US Air Force has long recognized the problem and has replaced the old ejection seats in most of its aircraft with new zero-zero seats, which allow the pilot to eject safely even at zero altitude and velocity, he said.
All of the nation’s main fighter jets — the F-16s, Mirage 2000s and Indigenous Defense Fighters — use zero-zero ejection seats, which increases their pilots’ chances of survival in the event of an ejection, retired pilot and air force Lieutenant General Chang Yen-ting (張延廷) said.
The Ministry of National Defense has already allocated NT$780 million (US$27.3 million) to replace the ejection seats on all 43 of the air force’s F-5Es and F-5Fs, the Executive Yuan said.
The money would be spent to buy Martin-Baker Mk 16 zero/zero ejection capability seats, which would be installed starting at end of this year or early next year, the ministry said.
The F-5E is a single-seat variant of the F-5 jet, while the F-5F is a twin-seat model.
Monday’s crash has once again raised doubts about deploying the aged F-5s, which first went into production in 1973 with the help of the US-based Northrop Corp.
Following the introduction of the F-16s, Mirage 2000-5s and F-CK-1s in Taiwan in the 1990s, the F-5Es and F-5Fs have either been withdrawn from service or deployed as second-line fighters and trainer jets.
There had been eight accidents involving F-5E/Fs since 2001, causing the deaths of 11 pilots, with two listed as missing and presumed dead.
The military is in the process of building 66 new indigenous advanced jet trainers by 2026 to replace its aging F-5 and AT-3 trainers.
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