A Taiwanese F-16 air force jet made a hard landing at an airport in Honolulu due to a landing gear malfunction, a military source said yesterday. No one was injured.
The source confirmed the incident to the Central News Agency after Hawaiian media reported the incident, which took place at about 2:45pm on Monday, leading to a runway at Daniel K Inouye International Airport being temporarily closed.
The Ministry of National Defense refused to comment on the report yesterday, but a military source said that the jet was owned by the air force.
Photo: Yu Tai-lang, Taipei Times
A Hawaii State Transportation Department spokesperson said the jet made a hard landing and came to rest on its nose after its landing gear did not deploy, according to a Hawaii News Now report, which also cited sources as saying that the aircraft came from Arizona.
Some Taiwanese media later reported that the F-16 belonged to the air force and had been on a training mission at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.
The source said the jet was flying from Arizona back to Taiwan, and the incident took place when the jet was making a stopover in Hawaii to refuel, adding that the aircraft did not sustain major damage.
No other information was immediately available on how long the aircraft would be in Hawaii and what repairs need to be made before it can return to the skies.
The source said the F-16 is one of about 10 F-16A/Bs currently being used on a training mission with Luke Air Base’s 21st Fighter Squadron, as part of a Taiwan-US training program that began in the 1990s when Taiwan purchased its first batch of the jets from the US.
The jet was flying back to Taiwan to be upgraded into the more advanced F-16V format as part of the air force’s ongoing retrofitting project launched in 2016, the source said.
The program involves a retrofit of all 141 of Taiwan’s F-16A/Bs into F-16Vs, which are equipped with more advanced avionics, including an APG-83 scalable agile beam radar, a helmet-mounted cueing system, and other flight management and electronic warfare systems.
Although the training program at Luke Air Force Base has existed since the 1990s, the US has rarely discussed it until recently due to the sensitivity of the issue.
In 2019, the administration of then-US president Donald Trump made the program public when announcing a round of arms sales to Taiwan.
Given that the US usually only trains the standing forces of major allies, such as NATO members, its decision to make public the training of Taiwanese fighter pilots signaled its close military ties with Taiwan, a source said at the time.
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
A magnitude 4.1 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 2:23pm today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was 5.4 kilometers northeast of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 34.9 km, according to the CWA. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was the highest in Hualien County, where it measured 2 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 1 in Yilan county, Taichung, Nantou County, Changhua County and Yunlin County, the CWA said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
RSS