Two US F/A-18s landed at an air force base in Tainan yesterday after one of the planes encountered mechanical problems, the Ministry of National Defense said.
The pilots landed at Tainan Air Force Base at 1:19pm after requesting permission to land because of a mechanical glitch in one of the aircraft, the ministry said.
The Civil Aeronautics Administration also confirmed that it had received distress signals from the F/A-18s.
Photo copied by Wang Chun-chung, Taipei Times
Records from the Air Navigation and Weather Service (ANWS), which is responsible for guiding the landing and takeoffs of civilian and military aircraft, showed that a fighter jet had sent signal code “7700” at about 1pm, meaning that the aircraft had encountered an emergency.
As the jets were near airspace over southern Taiwan, the ANWS asked its Kaohsiung Aviation Facilities Station to help guide the aircraft to the Tainan base.
There was no immediate word on where the US fighter jets were coming from or where they were headed.
“We can confirm that two US F/A-18s were traveling together on a routine flight today when one of the aircraft experienced a mechanical problem that required an immediate precautionary landing,” American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) spokesman Mark Zimmer said in response to a Taipei Times inquiry.
“Both aircraft landed in Tainan. Both aircraft and their crew are safely on the ground. We appreciate Taiwanese authorities’ allowing the aircraft to land in Taiwan when this emergency occurred, and accommodating the aircraft while any repairs take place,” he said.
The AIT is still assessing the situation and deciding how to fix the problems, he told the Central News Agency.
The Chinese-language United Daily News reported that the jets had taken off from a US base in Okinawa, Japan, and were conducting a routine patrol above waters north of Taiwan.
A military official, who confirmed that jets from the Republic of China Air Force 443rd Tactical Fighter Wing assisted the fighters with their landing, said he expected the US to send a team to handle any needed repairs, because the air force does not have any F/A-18 aircraft and does not have the ability to repair or maintain the aircraft.
There also were rumors that an EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft was to land in Tainan along with the F-18s, but ministry spokesman Major General David Lo (羅紹和) denied this.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan
RSS