The military has been detecting intermittent signals from the flight data recorder of an F-16V jet that disappeared last week, but the search teams have not yet pinned down the location of the recorder, also known as the black box, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said yesterday.
Koo gave the update on the sidelines of a legislative session, when asked about the ongoing search-and-rescue operations following the disappearance of the F-16V aircraft and its sole pilot, air force Captain Hsin Po-yi (辛柏毅), on Tuesday last week.
Hsin took off in the single-seat fighter jet, tail number 6700, from Hualien Air Base in eastern Taiwan at 6:17pm on a training mission, but he soon reported that the aircraft was losing altitude, the air force said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
At 7:28pm, he reported that he was about to eject from the aircraft, and eight seconds later, the jet’s signal disappeared from radar, the air force said, adding that there might have been some malfunction of the aircraft’s main onboard computer.
The air force subsequently set up an emergency response center, and launched a search-and-rescue operation, but has not yet been able to find Hsin or the aircraft.
The search and rescue operation to date involved 62 sorties of navy vessels, 62 sorties of coast guard boats and 16 sorties of drones, Koo said.
In total, about 1,000 people have been involved in the search-and-rescue efforts off the east coast, he said.
The military has detected some intermittent signals believed to be from the jet’s black box, but has not yet pinned down the location, he added.
Due to the rough seas yesterday, the search vessels could not leave port in eastern Taiwan, but would go out again when the conditions improve and try to locate the black box, Koo said.
Meanwhile, the air force’s F-16 fleet fully resumed combat readiness and training yesterday after suspension over the past week for inspections of the aircraft type as a precaution.
The Hualien Air Base was bustling yesterday morning. Ground crews were busy inspecting and preparing F-16V jets for their return to flight operations. After conducting engine performance tests, the aircraft were taken one by one to the runway for taxi tests. Once all checks confirmed no issues, at exactly 2pm, the wing commander, Colonel Hu Chung-hua (胡中華), led the resumption of flight operations.
This was followed by a total of four batches, with 12 F-16V aircraft conducting return-to-flight test missions.
Additional reporting by Yu Tai-lang
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