China yesterday deployed ships in response to a request from Vietnam to help find a Vietnam Coast Guard airplane that crashed with nine personnel aboard while looking for a missing fighter jet and pilot, the Vietnamese Ministry of Defence said.
The airplane went down on Thursday in the Gulf of Tonkin, between Vietnam’s northern coastline and China’s Hainan Island, where the rescue team had found some debris and personal items, the ministry said in a statement.
The Airbus-made airplane was searching for a Sukhoi SU-30MK2V fighter jet and a missing pilot that went off radar on Tuesday. One of the two fighter pilots was rescued from the sea the following day.
Thousands of Vietnamese coast guard, border guard, navy, air force and fishermen have been searching for the aircraft and the second pilot.
China sent one rescue and two China Coast Guard boats to help search for the airplane in response to Vietnam’s request for assistance and to allow its vessels to enter the Chinese side of a maritime boundary agreed between the two countries.
The airplane went down in bad weather and low visibility.
Vietnam has suffered a series of accidents over the past two years with its aging helicopters, but airplane crashes have been rare.
It is currently overseeing its biggest military buildup in four decades and wants to upgrade its air and sea defenses, including plans to purchase fighter jets, a strategy experts said is aimed at building a deterrent against China’s military rise.
The communist parties that rule China and Vietnam are historically close, but tensions are high over territorial disputes between them in the South China Sea.
Vietnam has stepped up efforts to strengthen its coast guard, with help from Japan, which has its own maritime squabbles with China, and the US, which has repeatedly locked horns with Beijing over the South China Sea.
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