In a first, Taiwan military conducts drill at major civilian airport
ROC Central News Agency
07/26/2023 01:08 PM
Taoyuan, July 26 (CNA) Taiwan's military on Wednesday conducted its first ever anti-takeover drill at the country's major international gateway to test its ability to fend off a Chinese invasion, as Taiwan's annual live-fire Han Kuang drills continued.
The anti-takeover drill at Taoyuan International Airport saw members of the Aviation and Special Forces Command and Army Airborne Special Forces posing as the "red" invading forces, with "blue" ground troops deployed to repel the takeover, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said.
It was designed to test the armed forces' cross-branch coordination and emergency response capabilities during a simulated Chinese invasion, the MND said.
During the 40-minute drill, the red team arrived at the airport on four military Black Hawk UH-60M choppers and engaged in a simulated attack while the blue team, consisting of Army soldiers, aviation police officers and airport firefighters, defended Taoyuan International Airport.
The red team also simulated a bomb attack at the airport, and airport firefighters on the blue team used two Oshkosh Striker 3000 firefighting vehicles to extinguish the explosives, according to the MND.
Similar drills were previously staged at other airports in Taiwan but never at Taiwan's busiest civilian airport in Taoyuan.
When the MND first announced the planned drill earlier this year, Transportation Minister Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said it would last an hour and potentially affect at least 61 flights and more than 4,000 travelers.
On Wednesday, the drill was cut to 40 minutes, with the MND saying it was done so that no scheduled flight would be delayed or affected by the drill.
According to the Taoyuan International Airport live flight web pages, however, no commercial planes pushed back from a gate between 9:19 and 9:55, and only one landed there between 9:09 a.m. and 10:14 a.m., indicating that the airport was not handling commercial traffic for about 40 minutes.
The military was also scheduled to hold an emergency landing and takeoff drill at a civilian airport in southeastern Taiwan on Tuesday as part of the Han Kuang drills, but it canceled the plan on Monday due to Typhoon Doksuri, which was expected to affect southern Taiwan.
The planned drill at Fengnian Airport, the first of its kind since the airport opened in 1981, would have involved F-16 fighter jets and C-130H Hercules transport aircraft, according to the MND.
The live-fire component of this year's Han Kuang military exercises kicked off early Monday.
The annual Han Kuang exercises, which have served as Taiwan's major war games since 1984, consist of live-fire drills and computerized war games and are meant to test Taiwan's combat readiness in the face of a possible Chinese invasion.
This year's tabletop exercises were staged in May.
(By Wu Sheng-hung and Joseph Yeh)
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