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Taiwan ground F16 fleet to ground after fighter plane goes missing

2020-11-18T22:49:35.614Z


Taiwan has grounded its entire fleet of F16 fighter jets while carrying out security checks after an aircraft disappeared during a training flight, authorities said on Wednesday (November 18th). Read also: Airbus prepares its partners to gain momentum This decision will deprive this territory of 150 F16 planes and thus limit its air defense capacity while in recent months, Chinese military plane


Taiwan has grounded its entire fleet of F16 fighter jets while carrying out security checks after an aircraft disappeared during a training flight, authorities said on Wednesday (November 18th).

Read also: Airbus prepares its partners to gain momentum

This decision will deprive this territory of 150 F16 planes and thus limit its air defense capacity while in recent months, Chinese military planes have approached the island with an unprecedented frequency.

The Air Force said a single-seater F16 piloted by a 44-year-old pilot disappeared from radar on Tuesday evening, two minutes after taking off from an air base east of the Isle.

It was then flying at an altitude of about 1,800 meters.

This disappearance comes less than three weeks after a pilot was killed when his F-15 plane crashed at sea. “

The rescue mission is now our top priority.

The Air Force pinned down all F16s to (carry out) checks and I ordered an investigation into the cause of this incident,

”Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen told reporters.

A fleet put to the test by China

The People's Republic of China regards the island territory as one of its provinces and threatens to use force in the event of a formal proclamation of independence or external intervention.

Taiwan's fleet of fighter jets is aging and vastly outstripped that of China.

In addition to the F16s, it includes Taiwanese Indigenous Defense Fighters (IDF) and Mirages built by France in the late 1990s, as well as F5-Es dating from the 1970s. Seven F16 accidents have occurred since Taiwan bought them in 1997 in the United States.

This year, Taiwan has taken off its planes at twice the rate of 2019 to protect itself from China's growing incursions into its defense zone.

According to analysts, these overflights of the Chinese army are designed to test the defensive reactions of the island but also to test its hunters who, with each exit, are approaching their decommissioning.

The Taiwanese army has experienced a series of air accidents this year.

In January, the Taiwanese army chief of staff and seven other officers died in a helicopter crash.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-11-18

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