An old air force F-5E jetfighter crashed into an army complex on Friday, killing two pilots aboard and as many Singaporean soldiers on the ground. Seven other military personnel from the Southeast Asian island state were injured, two of them critically, in the tragic accident that marred this year’s ongoing Operation Han Kuang troop maneuver. None of the Singaporean troops were taking part in the exercise, however.They came to Taiwan under Operation Starlight, a program Taiwan undertakes to provide military personnel from Singapore with combat training they can’t have in their own country.
The aged two-seater warplane was the seventeenth of its kind that went down over the past 20 years. All F-4Fs had to be decommissioned long ago, because they are no longer sufficiently airworthy, but Taiwan has to keep them in operation for no new-generation fighter planes are available. The Air Force has tried in vain to buy F-16 C/Ds from the United States. Washington doesn’t want to sell the planes, which are considered “offensive” fighters. President George W. Bush wants instead to sell defensive arms including submarines, anti-submarine helicopters and Patriot ground-to-air missiles.
The accident could and should have been prevented.
There’s no reason why the two pilots and their colleagues were assigned their simulated combat missions over Hukou near the populous cities of Hsinchu and Chupei, where Taiwan’s landmark science-based industrial park is located. In the past, combat missions were flown over the waters off the west coast of the island or the vast unpopulated area near the Mount Paoli Joint Operation Training Center in the southernmost county of Pingtung, the purpose being to preclude any possible crash from causing disaster on the densely populated ground.
Apparently, the pilots were engaged in a ground support operation. They flew their craft at an altitude of 600 meters or about 2,000 feet to either strafe ground troops or bomb fortified positions. But their warplane wasn’t fit for such an attack.It’s a “defensive” plane.In fact, it’s an inteRCEPtor. Why they were ordered to fly such mission over the heavily populated cities taxes one’s comprehension.
Operation Han Kuang 2007 is the last island-wide exercise Chen Shui-bian will be witnessing in his capacity as president. Probably the Ministry of National Defense wants to impress him with the combat capability of the Air Force by staging it nearer to Taipei. It is easier for the president to come and watch as director of the grand troop maneuver. At any rate, the brass hats have much to explain on the death of our pilots and Singaporean soldiers. And Operation Starlight may soon come to an end.
（本文刊載於96.05.14 China Post第4版，本文代表作者個人意見）