Searchers have salvaged the crash survivable memory unit (CSMU) of an F-16 jet that crashed last month in New Taipei City, which could help solve the mystery behind the crash that led to the death of the pilot.
The CSMU was found at about noon on Monday and is to be sent to the US manufacturer for further analysis in the hope of determining the cause of the accident, the air force said in a statement.
The crash occurred on June 4 when an F-16 jet piloted by major Wu Yen-ting (吳彥霆) disappeared from radar screens at 1:43pm, nearly 30 minutes after it took off from Hualien Air Force Base to participate in the annual Han Kuang military exercises.
The military later said it believed the airplane had crashed in mountains north of New Taipei City after a hiker called police at about 3:30pm to report having found possible wreckage from the jet.
Parts of Wu’s body were later found on Wufenshan (五分山) in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳).
Searchers on June 5 found the jet’s flight data recorder, commonly known as the “black box,” but the CSMU, which is normally inside the recorder, was missing.
Based on its initial findings, the air force has attributed the tragedy to “a combination of factors, including poor weather conditions and human error,” but has yet to identify a definitive cause.
Civil society groups yesterday protested outside the Legislative Yuan, decrying Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) efforts to pass three major bills that they said would seriously harm Taiwan’s democracy, and called to oust KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁). It was the second night of the three-day “Bluebird wintertime action” protests in Taipei, with organizers announcing that 8,000 people attended. Organized by Taiwan Citizen Front, the Economic Democracy Union (EDU) and a coalition of civil groups, about 6,000 people began a demonstration in front of KMT party headquarters in Taipei on Wednesday, organizers said. For the third day, the organizers asked people to assemble
POOR IMPLEMENTATION: Teachers welcomed the suspension, saying that the scheme disrupted school schedules, quality of learning and the milk market A policy to offer free milk to all school-age children nationwide is to be suspended next year due to multiple problems arising from implementation of the policy, the Executive Yuan announced yesterday. The policy was designed to increase the calcium intake of school-age children in Taiwan by drinking milk, as more than 80 percent drink less than 240ml per day. The recommended amount is 480ml. It was also implemented to help Taiwanese dairy farmers counter competition from fresh milk produced in New Zealand, which is to be imported to Taiwan tariff-free next year when the Agreement Between New Zealand and
A woman who allegedly spiked the food and drinks of an Australian man with rat poison, leaving him in intensive care, has been charged with attempted murder, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. The woman, identified by her surname Yang (楊), is accused of repeatedly poisoning Alex Shorey over the course of several months last year to prevent the Australian man from leaving Taiwan, prosecutors said in a statement. Shorey was evacuated back to Australia on May 3 last year after being admitted to intensive care in Taiwan. According to prosecutors, Yang put bromadiolone, a rodenticide that prevents blood from
China is likely to focus on its economy over the next four years and not set a timetable for attempting to annex Taiwan, a researcher at Beijing’s Tsinghua University wrote in an article published in Foreign Affairs magazine on Friday. In the article titled “Why China isn’t scared of Trump: US-Chinese tensions may rise, but his isolationism will help Beijing,” Chinese international studies researcher Yan Xuetong (閻學通) wrote that the US and China are unlikely to go to war over Taiwan in the next four years under US president-elect Donald Trump. While economic and military tensions between the US and China would