NEGLIGENCE: Air force personnel were not trained to use a ground proximity warning system, while the Songshan control tower used inaccurate information, a report said

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 25, 2020
By: Staff writer, with CNA

The Control Yuan yesterday censured the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) and the Air Force Command for their roles in a deadly F-16 crash in New Taipei City in 2018, and ordered them to make improvements.

The Control Yuan said in a statement that the decision was based on the conclusions of an investigative report approved on Thursday last week by its Committee on National Defense and Intelligence Affairs, which probed the accident that occurred in Rueifang District (瑞芳) on June 4, 2018.

Half an hour after taking off from Hualien Air Base to take part in a major annual drill, pilot Wu Yen-ting’s (吳彥霆) single-seat F-16 jet crashed into Wufenshan (五分山), killing him, apparently due to “human error” by air force and civilian flight controllers, the report said.

The Control Yuan blamed the crash on negligence and lack of discipline at the Air Operations Center of the Air Force Command, after finding that five of the officers involved were not fully prepared for the mission and did not carry out the mission based on standard procedures due to a lack of training.    [FULL  STORY]