Mirage 2000 crash not due to spare parts shortage: defense minister
ROC Central News Agency
03/15/2022 02:24 PM
Taipei, March 15 (CNA) Monday's Mirage 2000 crash was not due to a spare parts shortage, Taiwan's Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said on Tuesday, though he admitted that the military was considering upgrading or replacing the aging French-made jets that have been in service for 25 years in Taiwan.
"The Air Force's Mirage 2000 fleet has met the required availability rate and therefore I can assure you that it [the crash] had nothing to do with a shortage of spare parts," Chiu told reporters on the sideline of a Legislative session.
Chiu, however, refused to make public the Taiwan armed forces' required "availability" or "mission capable" rate for its Mirage 2000s, citing confidentiality reasons.
When asked about the spare parts shortage for the Mirage 2000s on Monday, Air Force Chief Inspector Major General Liu Hui-chien (柳惠千) said that the Air Force did experience "some delays" in receiving spare parts in previous months because of travel restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the spare parts supply has recently returned to normal and the overall availability rate of the nation's Mirage 2000 fleet is good, Liu said.
The military is considering upgrading or replacing its existing Mirage 2000-5s that have been in service in the nation's Air Force since 1997, but no final decision has been made, Chiu confirmed Tuesday.
The minister, meanwhile, said that as Taiwan's defense chief he took full responsibility for a series of military aircraft crashes over the past few years, when asked to comment if Taiwan's military has a relatively high incidence rate.
The military has had seven aircraft crashes since 2020, losing eight planes and helicopters and killing 13 military personnel.
He stated that the Air Force had been conducting reforms to beef up its pilots' training to make sure similar accidents will not happen again.
The Mirage 2000-5 fighter, serial number 2017, took off from eastern Taitung Air Base at 10:08 a.m. Monday for a routine training session.
About an hour after taking off, however, the 38-year-old pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Huang Chung-kai (黃重凱), reported to the base at 11:05 a.m. that his jet was experiencing a "mechanical malfunction," and he safely ejected at 11:26 a.m. around 10 nautical miles south of the Taitung Air Base.
He was later picked up in the ocean off the coast of Taitung County at 12:06 p.m. by a UH-60M helicopter, which landed at the base at 12:13 p.m. before Huang was sent to the hospital.
Commenting on Monday's crash, Chiu said he was pleased to learn that the pilot of the Mirage 2000 had safely ejected with no major injuries.
Taitung MacKay Memorial Hospital, where Huang is being hospitalized, told reporters that Huang will be discharged tomorrow if everything goes well.
Doctors said Monday that Huang was in good health despite the accident, but they would keep him under observation for another 48 hours as a precaution against Huang developing a possible lung infection after he inhaled some sea water while waiting to be rescued at sea.
On Monday, Taiwan's Air Force said initial indications were that a mechanical malfunction likely caused the crash.
However, the exact cause of the problem and the specific part of the plane where it occurred cannot be determined until after the jet's wreckage has been recovered and a further investigation has been conducted.
Sources told CNA that searchers had found some airplane parts in the ocean around 10 nautical miles off Taitung's Chihpen area on late Monday.
These parts have been sent to the Air Force to confirm if they were from the missing Mirage 2000.
Monday's accident was the eighth involving Taiwan's Mirage 2000-5s since they began service in the nation's Air Force in 1997. Among those were six crashes that left five pilots dead.
Taiwan now has 54 Mirage 2000-5s left.
(By Joseph Yeh)
Enditem/HY
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