The Air Force will finish installing new ejection seats on all of its F-5 fighter jets by the end of this year and hopefully put an end to a long-standing safety issue that has killed at least two pilots, a source in the military said on Saturday.
The Ministry of National Defense (MND) in 2021 budgeted NT$746.5 million (US$24.25 million) to install 70 Mk16 ejection seats manufactured by Martin-Baker Aircraft Co. on the nation’s fleet of 70 F-5 fighter jets.
This came after two fatal accidents in 2020 and 2021 involving F-5E jets.
On Oct. 30, 2020, Air Force Captain Chu Kuan-meng (???), 29, ejected from an F-5E during a drill after the jet’s engine malfunctioned. He was later found with no vital signs. A post-mortem found noticeable signs of trauma in his head and that he died of a cerebral hemorrhage-induced neurogenic shock.
In the 2021 accident, Air Force Lieutenant Luo Shang-hua (???), 26, died after his F-5E jet sideswiped that piloted by Captain Pan Ying-chun (???), 28, on March 22. Luo’s body was found four weeks after the accident.
The post-mortem on Luo determined he died of the same cause as Chu, while forensic examiners were unable to determine Pan’s cause of death at the time his body was found.
The MND later confirmed that a mechanical fault was detected in Chu’s and Luo’s ejection seats.
The two accidents happened less than six months apart from each other, sparking grave concern among lawmakers and members of the public, which prompted the MND to allocate funds for the procurement of the new ejection seats in 2021.
The Air Force installed the first new ejection seat in December last year, and as of the end of June this year had finished installing 24 seats, a source with knowledge of the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNA.
All 70 new ejection seats will be installed by the end of 2022, the source said.
Following a compatibility test, the Air Force has confirmed that the new seats are compatible with the domestically produced T-BE5A “Brave Eagle” advanced jet trainers and will be transferred to the trainers, which are scheduled to replace the F-5 jets in 2024, the source said.
The decades-old F-5 jets are mostly used for training purposes nowadays, though they could be called into action during wartime, according to another unnamed source in the Air Force.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel