Taiwan Suffers Second Fighter Loss in a Month as F-16 Disappears - All Falcons Now Grounded

Taiwan's Air Force has grounded its entire fleet of F-16 lightweight fighter jets following the disappearance of an F-16A jet during a routine training mission on November 17th. The aircraft reportedly disappeared two minutes after taking off from a base in Hualien on Taiwan’s east coast at 6.05pm, and was approximately 16km out at sea at the time with search missions so far failing to locate it. Despite the grounding, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry pledged to continue combat preparedness missions as planned, using F-CK Ching Kuo jets in place of the F-16s.

The F-16’s loss marks the second such incident in under a month, following the loss of an F-5E fighter which also resulted in Taiwan grounding all aircraft of the type in service. Taiwan’s fighter fleet is among the oldest in the region, with all aircraft acquired in the 1990s or earlier and increasingly being worn out by adverse weather conditions and intensive use leading to rising maintenance costs and lower availability rates. This has contrasted sharply with the Chinese mainland, which fields many of the world’s most sophisticated fighters including the world’s only fully operational fifth generation fighter developed outside the United States - the Chengdu J-20. The qualitative gap between fighter fleets across the Taiwan Strait is vast and growing, covering aspects from sensors and stealth capabilities to electronic warfare systems and air to air missiles. 

The F-5 and F-16 are the only American fighters in Taiwanese service, and operate alongside two squadrons of indigenous Ching Kuo fighters and a single squadron of Mirage 2000 fighters. The French built Mirage jets have suffered the highest crash rate by far, with 10% of the fleet lost, and their manufacturing quality has left much to be desired compared to Taiwanese and American built aircraft. Both the F-5E and the Mirage 2000 are slated for retirement in the near future, the former due to its age and the latter due to its performance issues and inability to incorporate upgrades. Respective successors to the F-16A and the Ching Kuo, namely the ‘4+ generation’ F-16V and the Brave Eagle jet, are both currently on order and will replace the F-5 and the Mirage 2000 in the mid-late 2020s. This will make the Taiwanese fleet more advanced but also less diverse, which has a number of advantages regarding the compatibility of weapons and maintenance infrastructure between different fighter squadrons.