The Republic of China Air Force yesterday used a closed-off motorway as a runway in a rare drill simulating a surprise attack from China that had wiped out its major airbases.
In all, six fighter aircraft landed and took off from Freeway No. 1 in an emergency landing and takeoff exercise, under the watchful eye of hundreds of spectators.
The one-hour drill anticipated a scenario in which runways at airbases in Greater Kaohsiung’s Gangshan Township (岡山), Penghu’s Magong (馬公), Pingtung and Greater Tainan were destroyed by three waves of missile attacks by China, forcing the air force to use alternative locations for landing and takeoff, the Ministry of National Defense said.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
“In today’s scenario, we assumed most of Taiwan’s military air bases were severely damaged in an attack by missiles from the People’s Liberation Army, and fighter jets could not return to their home bases,” an air force spokesman told reporters.
“Because of that we needed to convert some sections of the freeway to serve as emergency runways ... and for that purpose, we need to check the standard procedures, like clearing up the road surface, setting up communications networks and installing plane arrest cables,” he said.
In the exercise, which began at 7:26am in heavy fog, two Indigenous Defense Fighters (IDF), two F-16A/Bs and two Mirage 2000s landed on a 2.7km stretch of Freeway No. 1 in the Madou area of Greater Tainan. More than 1,300 members of the armed services participated in the exercise.
Photo: AFP
The IDF fighters took off from Tainan Air Base, while the F-16s and Mirage 2000s took off from Chiashan Base (佳山) in Hualien County.
To ensure the planes could land safely, a large number of soldiers were ordered to carry out a meticulous search for stones or other small objects on the road.
Several cars also drove along the motorway, releasing high-frequency sounds to scare away birds that might be sucked into the turbines of the jets.
As the six combat aircraft landed on the freeway, an army OH-58D scout helicopter carried out surveillance and an AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopter provided protection for a CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter carrying bombs and missiles for the fighter aircraft.
Security checks, refilling and missile reloading on the six aircraft were accomplished within one hour. Each IDF aircraft was loaded with six Mk 82 bombs, while each F-16 was fitted with AGM-65 Maverick and AGM-84 Harpoon missiles and the Mirage 2000s were loaded with MICA missiles.
At 8:26am, the six combat aircraft took off at intervals of one minute.
The Madou section of the freeway was closed from 4am until 10am yesterday.
The drill was part of the five-day Han Kuang 27, an annual series of exercises that began on Monday and end on Friday.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS