Taiwan Searches for F-16 Gone Missing During Training Exercise

(Bloomberg) -- Taiwanese rescuers are searching for an F-16 jet that went missing during a training exercise Tuesday, the second disappearance of the island’s most advanced fighters in just over a year.

The air force has halted all drills and training exercises for F-16V jets after the aircraft vanished from radar screens about half an hour after it took off from Chiayi air base just before 3 p.m. during a routine training run, according to officials and a government statement.

The airplane fell into the sea when conducting a shooting drill, Inspector-General Liu Hui-chien said at a briefing in Taipei late on Tuesday. The pilot was not seen ejecting, but the air force hasn’t ruled out the possibility he survived the accident.

The military has established a response center to coordinate search and recovery operations with the assistance of the coast guard and police.

The jet was one of 64 newly upgraded F-16Vs the Taiwan air force brought into service in November as part of a $3.9 billion U.S.-backed program to beef up its fleet of 141 aging F-16s bought in the 1990s and early 2000s. Lockheed Martin Corp. is scheduled to deliver an additional 66 all-new F-16Vs to Taiwan by 2026.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has ordered the military and emergency services to treat the rescue operation as their top priority, Presidential Office spokesman Chang Tun-han said in a text message.

Tuesday’s disappearance is the latest in a series of military aviation accidents in recent years, renewing worries about the island’s aging defense hardware. It comes as Taiwan had had to scramble more jets over the past year to fend off increased incursions from China, which considers the island part of its territory, even though it has never controlled it.

Taiwan grounded all military airplanes in March after a mid-air collision of two F-5 jets that left one pilot dead and another missing. An F-16 was lost off the east coast minutes after taking off from a base in Hualien in November 2020 and has yet to be found. Taiwan’s top uniformed military officer was among eight passengers who died when their UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter made an emergency landing in a mountainous area just south of Taipei City in January 2020. 

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