The Taiwanese military has been hit by a series of air crashes this year. (Representation)
Taipei, Taiwan:
Taiwan has grounded all of its F16 fighter jets for security checks as rescuers continue to search for the one who went missing during a training exercise, authorities said on Wednesday.
The decision removes around 150 planes from Taiwan’s skies, leaving the Democratic Island to rely on an even smaller fleet to warn Chinese jets that have been rocking it at an unprecedented rate in recent months.
The Air Force said a single-seater F16 piloted by a 44-year-old pilot disappeared from radar at an altitude of 1,800 meters about two minutes after taking off from Hualien Air Base in eastern Taiwan on Tuesday. evening.
The disappearance comes less than three weeks after a pilot died when his F-5E fighter jet crashed into the sea during training, causing a similar grounding.
“The rescue mission is our top priority now. The Air Force has ground all F16s for checks and I have called for an investigation into the cause of the incident,” President Tsai Ing said. -wen to journalists.
Taiwan lives under the constant threat of an invasion from China, which regards the island as its own territory and has vowed to seize it one day, by force if necessary.
Its fleet of hunters is old and massively exceeded by that of China. Without the F16s, it consists of the locally built native defense hunter, French-built Mirages from the late 1990s, and F5-E hunters that date back to the 1970s.
There have been seven accidents involving F16s since Taiwan took delivery of the fighters purchased from the United States in 1997.
Taiwan has jammed its planes at double the rate last year to protect itself against increased Chinese incursions into its defensive zone.
Analysts say the Beijing flyovers are designed to test the island’s defense responses but also to exhaust its fighters, who are approaching expiration on each sortie.
The Taiwanese military has been hit by a series of air crashes this year.
In January, eight senior officials, including the Chief of Staff, were killed in a helicopter crash.
Beijing has exerted military, economic and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan since President Tsai’s election in 2016, in part because of its refusal to recognize its position that the island is part of “one China.”
Under US President Donald Trump’s leadership, Washington authorized some $ 18 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, including 66 next-generation F16s and advanced missile platforms – sales that angered Beijing.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
