Standard after incident report, ground all old planes...
Taiwan's air force said Wednesday that it had grounded its ageing
F-5 fighter jet fleet for urgent safety checks after one plane
crashed, killing two pilots.
"All the flights of the F-5s have been halted until a thorough
safety check is completed," an air force spokesman said.
It came after a twin-seat F-5F went missing during a training
flight with two pilots on board.
The air force headquarters later confirmed that the ill-fated plane
had crashed into the Taiwan Strait. "Some wreckage and part of the
pilots' bodies have been found," the spokesman said.
The plane disappeared from radar screens in the late morning after
taking off from the central Chingchuankang air base and heading for
the Taiwan Strait on a bombing training mission, the air force
said.
The crash -- the second of its kind in just over two years --
sparked concerns over the use of the jets, designed by the United
States and assembled here in the early 1980s.
BTW we are still flying our F5 Interceptors and Trainers.