PLAAF air disaster
- Thread starter DPRKPTboat
- Start date
:china: 
Any situation like this is tragic. Very sad indeed. I'm sure the PLAAF authorities will fully investigate the crash.
Military air crashes or any air disater usally bring tremendous foucus on the air carrier involved. Is this the case in the PRC? Do they have a "Transportation safety board" that will investigate the accident? Or will it just be the PLAAF investigating?
Military air crashes or any air disater usally bring tremendous foucus on the air carrier involved. Is this the case in the PRC? Do they have a "Transportation safety board" that will investigate the accident? Or will it just be the PLAAF investigating?
DPRKPTboat
Junior Member
Anyhow, I don't think this is as serious for China as the K-193 incident was for Russia. But If it was an AWAC prototype, I imagine some chinese generals in charge of military development are going to be pissed. I find it hard to believe that women and children were on that plane. Perhaps the witness was confused with local peasents fleeing from the crash site.
Sorry Roger, can you translate that please? I don't read Chinese. And the date says 2003 not 2006.
Roger604 said:
Sorry Roger, can you translate that please? I don't read Chinese. And the date says 2003 not 2006.
Last edited by a moderator:
D
Deleted member 675
Guest
bd popeye said:
I'm quite sure they will. But, then again, will they:
a) Actually publish the report in public or just give some sort of a statement?
b) Publish a report with a plausible story that doesn't actually say what really happened?
I guess we'll never be able to be completely sure of what happened, unless they admit to some sort of scandal.
Anyway I'm rather disturbed about the report of women and children being on board + the civilian clothes - sounds rather suspicious.
China's bid to expand air defense takes hit
New York Times
China's efforts to field an early-warning aircraft that could help it project power far beyond its borders and challenge American intervention in any conflict with Taiwan were dealt at least a temporary blow by the crash of a surveillance aircraft Sunday, defense specialists in the region said.
The aircraft, described by two Hong Kong newspapers linked to the Beijing government as a Chinese-made Aviation Warning and Control System, or AWACS, plane, slammed into a hillside in central Anhui Province on Sunday, killing all 40 technicians and crew members on board.
The crash was described as one of the worst disasters in the history of the Chinese air force. Mainland Chinese media said Guo Boxiong, a top military official in Beijing, was supervising the investigation into the crash and that Chinese President Hu Jintao had expressed condolences to the families of the victims.
The two newspapers in Hong Kong, Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po, carried articles Monday that described the crash in more detail than the mainland media. They did not identify the model of the plane, but regional experts suggested it was most likely the KJ-2000, an early-warning aircraft China has developed using mostly indigenous technology.
In addition to the loss of the aircraft, one of four China has built, experts said the deaths of the 40 people on board, including 35 electronics and avionics technicians, could hinder one of China's most pressing military modernization programs.
"We don't know the cause of the crash and can't say for certain how much of a problem it will prove to be," said Allen Behm, an expert on the Chinese military and a former chief strategist in Australia's Defense Department. "But to lose that much expertise really does hurt."
The United States has a sophisticated fleet of AWACS aircraft that it sees as giving its naval forces a decisive advantage in sea battles.
China needs such technology if it intends to project force far from its own shores. Without such technology, it would face tactical disadvantages in the event of a conflict involving Japan or Taiwan.
China has repeatedly threatened to attack Taiwan if the island declares formal independence. The United States has said that it would come to Taiwan's defense if China mounted an attack. Japan, a U.S. military ally, uses American-made AWACS aircraft.
China tried for years to purchase AWACS technology from Israel, France, Britain and Russia. But the United States strongly opposed the sale of such technology, and Beijing has been forced to develop its own version.
The KJ-2000 is a conversion of a Russian-made Il-76 transport plane into an AWACS aircraft. The Chinese Air Force has also mounted sophisticated radar systems on its own Yun-8 transport planes.
The AWACS system China uses has similarities to the Israeli Phalcon technology Beijing once hoped to buy off the shelf. It has a fixed rotodome and phased-array antennas attached to the fuselage, aviation experts say.
Behm said the number of people on board the plane Sunday suggested that China was conducting a test of the aircraft. The plane may have carried three dozen technicians because China wanted to conduct the tests without transmitting real-time data from the aircraft to the ground.
The United States could potentially intercept air-to-ground signals from a Chinese AWACS plane and gauge the country's progress in developing the technology, Behm said.
Lin Chong-pin, a former defense official in Taiwan, said China has pushed hard to develop early-warning aircraft and probably would not be deterred by the accident.
"They have the resolve and they have the money," Lin said. "So I don't imagine that this will set them back for too long."
But he added that China may be somewhat less likely to pursue a military confrontation with Taiwan if it feels that its AWACS aircraft are unprepared for wartime operations.
New York Times
China's efforts to field an early-warning aircraft that could help it project power far beyond its borders and challenge American intervention in any conflict with Taiwan were dealt at least a temporary blow by the crash of a surveillance aircraft Sunday, defense specialists in the region said.
The aircraft, described by two Hong Kong newspapers linked to the Beijing government as a Chinese-made Aviation Warning and Control System, or AWACS, plane, slammed into a hillside in central Anhui Province on Sunday, killing all 40 technicians and crew members on board.
The crash was described as one of the worst disasters in the history of the Chinese air force. Mainland Chinese media said Guo Boxiong, a top military official in Beijing, was supervising the investigation into the crash and that Chinese President Hu Jintao had expressed condolences to the families of the victims.
The two newspapers in Hong Kong, Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po, carried articles Monday that described the crash in more detail than the mainland media. They did not identify the model of the plane, but regional experts suggested it was most likely the KJ-2000, an early-warning aircraft China has developed using mostly indigenous technology.
In addition to the loss of the aircraft, one of four China has built, experts said the deaths of the 40 people on board, including 35 electronics and avionics technicians, could hinder one of China's most pressing military modernization programs.
"We don't know the cause of the crash and can't say for certain how much of a problem it will prove to be," said Allen Behm, an expert on the Chinese military and a former chief strategist in Australia's Defense Department. "But to lose that much expertise really does hurt."
The United States has a sophisticated fleet of AWACS aircraft that it sees as giving its naval forces a decisive advantage in sea battles.
China needs such technology if it intends to project force far from its own shores. Without such technology, it would face tactical disadvantages in the event of a conflict involving Japan or Taiwan.
China has repeatedly threatened to attack Taiwan if the island declares formal independence. The United States has said that it would come to Taiwan's defense if China mounted an attack. Japan, a U.S. military ally, uses American-made AWACS aircraft.
China tried for years to purchase AWACS technology from Israel, France, Britain and Russia. But the United States strongly opposed the sale of such technology, and Beijing has been forced to develop its own version.
The KJ-2000 is a conversion of a Russian-made Il-76 transport plane into an AWACS aircraft. The Chinese Air Force has also mounted sophisticated radar systems on its own Yun-8 transport planes.
The AWACS system China uses has similarities to the Israeli Phalcon technology Beijing once hoped to buy off the shelf. It has a fixed rotodome and phased-array antennas attached to the fuselage, aviation experts say.
Behm said the number of people on board the plane Sunday suggested that China was conducting a test of the aircraft. The plane may have carried three dozen technicians because China wanted to conduct the tests without transmitting real-time data from the aircraft to the ground.
The United States could potentially intercept air-to-ground signals from a Chinese AWACS plane and gauge the country's progress in developing the technology, Behm said.
Lin Chong-pin, a former defense official in Taiwan, said China has pushed hard to develop early-warning aircraft and probably would not be deterred by the accident.
"They have the resolve and they have the money," Lin said. "So I don't imagine that this will set them back for too long."
But he added that China may be somewhat less likely to pursue a military confrontation with Taiwan if it feels that its AWACS aircraft are unprepared for wartime operations.
D
Deleted member 675
Guest
Defense said:
Interesting. Although this set-back would hardly turn a crushing victory into a defeat over Taiwan, I guess things like this could matter in some respects. Depending on how far this sets back their project, it might persuade the Beijing administration to leave Taiwan alone when otherwise it might have narrowly decided to invade.
Lol, what is up with the West having so much faith in Hong Kong newspaper on Chinese military news. We know they are almost never true. It simply amazes me these "journalist" just write junk? How can it possibly be KJ-2000 when everyone says it's a Y-8 that crashed? It's amazing that certain people are so biased that they would rather listen to some Hong Kong newspaper and Andrei Pinkov rather than official Chinese government report. We probably gathered that 40 people died, some of them are engineers returning home. Of course, it's a loss, but China is a huge country, definitely not as tragical for the Chinese AWACS program as some people have been trying to make it out be.Defense said: