How mainland Chinese transport plane highlighted ‘serious weaknesses’ in Taiwan’s air defences
- A transport plane approached the small island of Dongyin earlier this month, but the Taiwanese initially failed to detect it
- A former naval instructor says human error and a weakness in the radar system were the cause
Last week Taiwan’s defence ministry confirmed that “an unidentified fixed-wing twin-propeller aircraft” that flew close to Dongyin earlier this month was a Y-12, a small transport plane, from the Chinese mainland.
Residents on the island, which is just 16km (10 miles) from the mainland, reported details of the incident on social media but the local garrison initially failed to detect the plane.
Dongyin, part of the Matsu chain of islands, hosts anti-aircraft missiles and an AN/FPS-117 radar system imported from the United States.
Lu Li-shih, a former instructor at Taiwan’s Naval Academy in Kaohsiung, said human error may also have been a factor, but added the three-dimensional radar system was “designed to search and detect long-distance targets between 120km to 470km away”.
“But the ‘far-sighted’ long-range radar system has a serious weakness – its regular operations automatically take out short-range signals, putting the area within a radius of 120km under a dead zone,” Lu said.
