A tail rotor failure might have caused a Taiwanese Navy S-70C anti-submarine helicopter to crash in Kaohsiung during a training mission on Wednesday, a preliminary inquiry has shown.
The aircraft “made a hard landing” on the tarmac of the Kaohsiung Zuoying naval base on Wednesday at about 4pm, injuring all four crew members, with one in critical condition, navy Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Chiang Cheng-kuo (蔣正國) said at a news conference yesterday.
Accounts from air traffic controllers and the helicopter’s pilots pointed to a tail rotor failure, Chiang said, adding that no other mechanical problems were encountered before the incident.
Photo: CNA
An official cause of the crash has not been determined pending investigation, he said.
The crew chief, surnamed Liu (劉), suffered the most severe injuries and is in hospital in critical condition, Ministry of National Defense Medical Affairs Bureau official Chen Yuan-hao (陳元皓) said.
Liu sustained second and third-degree burns on 95 percent of his body, and has a subarachnoid hemorrhage — bleeding between the brain and its surrounding membrane, Chen said.
The other crew members are in stable condition after being treated at a military hospital in Kaohsiung, including a chief inspector surnamed Kuo (郭), who has second and third-degree burns on 20 percent of his body, Chen said.
The pilot, surnamed Chen (陳), and co-pilot, surnamed Cheng (鄭), have relatively minor injuries, such as rib fractures and lacerations to the face and limbs, he said.
The navy said the helicopter was severely damaged, and it would assess whether repair is possible.
The crash was the fourth military aircraft accident this year, following crashes of an F-16 fighter, a Mirage 2000 fighter and an AT-3 trainer, resulting in the deaths of two pilots.
Taiwan’s Naval Antisubmarine Aviation Group has 18 S-70Cs, which have been in service since 1991, including the one that crashed on Wednesday.
Three other S-70C-related incidents that resulted in severe damage to the aircraft occurred in 1994, 2005 and 2008.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS