The military has found and retrieved the flight data recorder of an F-16V jet that disappeared off eastern Taiwan in January and would soon send it to its manufacturer in the US to decode the data, the Air Force Command Headquarters said today.
The salvage company responsible for the mission retrieved the flight data recorder, also known as the black box, in waters off Taiwan yesterday, the air force said.
It did not disclose the exact location where the black box was found, but it said that the device had been moved ashore and would be sent for decoding to determine the cause of the plane's disappearance.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
The single-seat fighter jet, tail number 6700, piloted by Captain Hsin Po-yi (辛柏毅), went missing on Jan. 6 after taking off and heading south from Hualien Air Base at 6:17pm on a nighttime training mission.
Hsin soon reported that the aircraft was losing altitude, the air force said.
At 7:28pm, Hsin reported that he was about to eject from the aircraft, and eight seconds later, the jet's signal disappeared from radar while it was flying off the coast of Hualien County’s Fengbin Township (豐濱), it said.
The air force set up an emergency response center and launched a search-and-rescue operation, but did not find Hsin.
It has since speculated that the aircraft's main onboard computer might have malfunctioned, but has continued its investigation into the cause of the incident.
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