PLAAF air disaster
- Thread starter DPRKPTboat
- Start date
I seriously do think people are making a way big deal out of this than it deserves to be. Out of the 40 people, you might have half working on the project. And for a project as important as AWACS, you would expect it to have hundreds of engineers. (maybe someone from the defensive industry can answer this better). To use a commercial example, you have a company with a set of IPs. At any specific point, it might have to trim its staff or might loose its staff by 10% or more. Does that mean the company can't operate anymore? Or that it can't hire some more intelligent people later on to replace the lost workers?PLABUDDY said:
There is something called "knowledge transfer". If these people were on board doing testing on this system they ought to be more than those on ground. So the loss is not material but intellectual. Project wont get scrapped but its a setback, material and knowledge wise.
Poor guys in the end they were nothing but numbers.
Poor guys in the end they were nothing but numbers.
平衡木預警機遇難工程師隆重出殯
DWNEWS.COM-- 2006年6月11日2:24:40(京港台時間) --多維新聞
明報/安徽合肥市的消息透露，位於合肥市的中國電子科技集團合肥研究所(簡稱38所)昨日為在墜的空軍預警機中遇難的工程師陳秋華舉行出殯儀式，解放軍總裝備部、國防科工委、38所的上級中國電子科技集團以及安徽地方官員到場，儀式隆重而莊嚴。消息還證實，當時失事的軍機為中國空軍平衡木預警機。
合肥的消息指，遇難的是38所一名著名電子專家，當時與其他工程科技人員一道在機上負責測試工作。預警機出事後，其遺體被運回合肥。昨日的出殯儀式由38所舉行，解放軍總裝備部、國防科工委、中國電子科技集團總部均派員出席，規格很高很隆重。告別儀式昨日上午9時在38所舉行，之後，載有英雄遺體的靈車在前導車開路和多輛載有公司員工的巴士相送下，駛往合肥市殯儀館。
平衡木預警機墜
有份參加出殯活動的一名人士對本報記者形容，英雄出殯時，一切都那麼安寧，38所路口交警默默指揮，給靈車讓路，沿途車輛和行人均停下給靈車讓道，並致注目禮，人們對這位為國防事業捐軀的英雄科學家致以崇高敬意，在心中祝願他走好。
位於安徽合肥的38所隸屬中國信息產業部下的中國電子科技集團公司，成立於1965年，1988年從貴州搬遷到合肥，是中國新一代多卜勒雷達的研製單位，其雷達研製水平在中國屬於領尖水平，並且是解放軍空警預警機雷達研製單位。
6月3日，新華社公布一架軍用運輸機在安徽墮機，40人遇難，但對是何運輸機及遇難者為何人則語焉不詳。外界一直認為，失事的是解放軍剛入役的新型預警機。合肥38所昨日的出殯活動，證明了外界的揣測。
If this article was right, most the people dead in the crashed should be from Lab 38.
The plane probably is Y-8 balance Beam.
DWNEWS.COM-- 2006年6月11日2:24:40(京港台時間) --多維新聞
明報/安徽合肥市的消息透露，位於合肥市的中國電子科技集團合肥研究所(簡稱38所)昨日為在墜的空軍預警機中遇難的工程師陳秋華舉行出殯儀式，解放軍總裝備部、國防科工委、38所的上級中國電子科技集團以及安徽地方官員到場，儀式隆重而莊嚴。消息還證實，當時失事的軍機為中國空軍平衡木預警機。
合肥的消息指，遇難的是38所一名著名電子專家，當時與其他工程科技人員一道在機上負責測試工作。預警機出事後，其遺體被運回合肥。昨日的出殯儀式由38所舉行，解放軍總裝備部、國防科工委、中國電子科技集團總部均派員出席，規格很高很隆重。告別儀式昨日上午9時在38所舉行，之後，載有英雄遺體的靈車在前導車開路和多輛載有公司員工的巴士相送下，駛往合肥市殯儀館。
平衡木預警機墜
有份參加出殯活動的一名人士對本報記者形容，英雄出殯時，一切都那麼安寧，38所路口交警默默指揮，給靈車讓路，沿途車輛和行人均停下給靈車讓道，並致注目禮，人們對這位為國防事業捐軀的英雄科學家致以崇高敬意，在心中祝願他走好。
位於安徽合肥的38所隸屬中國信息產業部下的中國電子科技集團公司，成立於1965年，1988年從貴州搬遷到合肥，是中國新一代多卜勒雷達的研製單位，其雷達研製水平在中國屬於領尖水平，並且是解放軍空警預警機雷達研製單位。
6月3日，新華社公布一架軍用運輸機在安徽墮機，40人遇難，但對是何運輸機及遇難者為何人則語焉不詳。外界一直認為，失事的是解放軍剛入役的新型預警機。合肥38所昨日的出殯活動，證明了外界的揣測。
If this article was right, most the people dead in the crashed should be from Lab 38.
The plane probably is Y-8 balance Beam.
bladerunner
Banned Idiot
whats the possibility
The Sunday Times - World
The Sunday Times June 11, 2006
China's hi-tech military disaster
Michael Sheridan, Far East Correspondent
Bid to copy Israeli electronics kills experts
A DULL boom shook the misty bamboo forests of Guangde county, 125 miles southwest of Shanghai, last Sunday, and a plume of smoke rose in the sky, causing Chinese villagers to look up in alarm from their tasks.
Within 24 hours China officially admitted that a “military aircraft” had crashed, that President Hu Jintao had ordered an investigation and that state honours would be bestowed on the victims.
Security teams sealed off the area, carting away the charred remains of 40 people and collecting wreckage with painstaking care. It looked like a routine military accident.
In fact the crash would reverberate all the way to Washington and Tel Aviv, revealing details of a covert Chinese espionage effort to copy Israeli technology in an attempt to match the United States in any future air and sea battle.
The first clues were given by two Chinese-controlled newspapers in Hong Kong, Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po. On Monday they printed articles disclosing that the plane was a Chinese version of the formidable Airborne Warning and Control System (Awacs) aircraft flown by the United States to manage air, sea and land battles.
They indicated that it was a Russian Ilyushin four-engined cargo jet, rebuilt to house a conspicuous array of radars and codenamed KJ-2000. The doomed flight, they implied, had been a test mission.
The disaster robbed China of 35 of its best electronic warfare technicians, according to sources in Hong Kong. There were also five crew members on board.
With memories fresh in Beijing of a Boeing 767 bought for the use of former president Jiang Zemin and found to be riddled with eavesdropping devices, there were bound to be suspicions of sabotage.
The Communist party showed how seriously it took the crash by entrusting the inquiry to Guo Boxiong, vice-chairman of the party’s central military commission, who handles sensitive security matters.
It was without question a calamity for the Chinese military. But for the Americans, who lost a spy plane forced down by a Chinese interceptor jet in 2000, it was not a cause for sincere mourning. The US Seventh Fleet is ranged off the Chinese coast, in constant contact with Chinese planes and submarines probing its readiness to defend the self-ruled democracy on Taiwan.
Both America and Taiwan spend undisclosed billions trying to penetrate the wall of secrecy that surrounds China’s military build-up, which was criticised once again last week by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary.
Spies from Taiwan are known to have scored remarkable successes. In one recent case reported by The Washington Post, they placed in their president’s hands the proceedings of a secret standing committee meeting on Taiwan policy within days of its taking place.
American intelligence, by contrast, concentrates on a war fought with science and stealth to preserve its technological advantage.
For as long as the Chinese have tried to buy, steal or copy high-grade military technology — at least since the early 1990s — the CIA and the White House have sought to frustrate them. China relies on foreign know-how. British propellers from the Dowty company are fitted to its Y-8 early warning aircraft and radars made by Racal Electronics are installed on its naval surveillance planes.
But the crown jewels of electronic warfare are made in America, which means that China’s hunger for secrets can be exploited by its foes. Late in the cold war, the CIA supplied faulty computer items to the Soviets, which resulted in death and destruction. So suspicions of treachery in Beijing are bound to be reinforced by the tale of intrigue and deception that unfolded upon examination of what led to the fatal end of the KJ-2000.
“The PLA [People’s Liberation Army] air force and navy have long required airborne early warning aircraft,” stated a report by the US Congressional Research Service in November 2001. “Each is looking for 8-10 aircraft to supplement their own unsuccessful efforts.”
In 1999 the Chinese thought they had the perfect deal. A Russian Ilyushin-76 transport, serial number #762, was bought and flown to a military airfield in Israel, where it was fitted with the world’s most advanced Awacs system, the Phalcon, perfected by technicians at Israel Aircraft Industries. The cost: $250m (£135m).
Inevitably, the CIA heard of the deal and the issue went all the way to the White House, which exerted tremendous pressure on Israel.
On July 11, 2000, Ehud Barak, then the Israeli prime minister, broke off from peace talks at Camp David
to tell President Bill Clinton that the sale had been cancelled. Barak confided that he had sent a personal letter of regret to Jiang Zemin.
But Chinese persistence ensured the matter did not end there. In 2002, according to aviation specialist websites, aircraft #762, stripped of the Phalcon system, was flown from Israel back to Russia and on to an airfield in east China that is home to the Nanjing Research Institute of Technology.
Moreover, the Chinese technicians had not wasted their time in Israel. “It’s not unreasonable to believe that the Israelis offered the Chinese industrial participation to seal this high dollar deal,” said a US Department of Defence analyst, quoted in a report for the US Army War College.
“The Phalcon system makes extensive use of commercial off-the-shelf products, which gives easy access to the basic building blocks of the system,” the unnamed analyst added.
In 2003 aviation specialists photographed two IL-76 Awacs prototypes, by then codenamed KJ-2000, on test flights over Nanjing. One was #762, the other was coded B-4040.
Late last year the local aviation authorities — which in China are controlled by the military — bought sophisticated Monopulse secondary surveillance radars from Telephonics Corp, a New York-based subsidiary of the Griffon Corporation, which supplies the US Awacs fleet.
The radars were due for delivery early in 2006. Their purpose was stated to be civil aviation, but critics in Congress say the Chinese buy such items for “dual use” in military systems.
According to specifications published by the Federation of American Scientists, such radars can be closely integrated with an Awacs plane to enhance targets. There is now speculation among military and aviation attachés in the region that the ill-fated KJ-2000 may have been testing a hitherto unproven technical capability of precisely this nature when it crashed.
That should provide more than enough questions for Vice-Chairman Guo and his bloodhounds from the military commission to get their teeth into.
The Sunday Times - World
The Sunday Times June 11, 2006
China's hi-tech military disaster
Michael Sheridan, Far East Correspondent
Bid to copy Israeli electronics kills experts
A DULL boom shook the misty bamboo forests of Guangde county, 125 miles southwest of Shanghai, last Sunday, and a plume of smoke rose in the sky, causing Chinese villagers to look up in alarm from their tasks.
Within 24 hours China officially admitted that a “military aircraft” had crashed, that President Hu Jintao had ordered an investigation and that state honours would be bestowed on the victims.
Security teams sealed off the area, carting away the charred remains of 40 people and collecting wreckage with painstaking care. It looked like a routine military accident.
In fact the crash would reverberate all the way to Washington and Tel Aviv, revealing details of a covert Chinese espionage effort to copy Israeli technology in an attempt to match the United States in any future air and sea battle.
The first clues were given by two Chinese-controlled newspapers in Hong Kong, Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po. On Monday they printed articles disclosing that the plane was a Chinese version of the formidable Airborne Warning and Control System (Awacs) aircraft flown by the United States to manage air, sea and land battles.
They indicated that it was a Russian Ilyushin four-engined cargo jet, rebuilt to house a conspicuous array of radars and codenamed KJ-2000. The doomed flight, they implied, had been a test mission.
The disaster robbed China of 35 of its best electronic warfare technicians, according to sources in Hong Kong. There were also five crew members on board.
With memories fresh in Beijing of a Boeing 767 bought for the use of former president Jiang Zemin and found to be riddled with eavesdropping devices, there were bound to be suspicions of sabotage.
The Communist party showed how seriously it took the crash by entrusting the inquiry to Guo Boxiong, vice-chairman of the party’s central military commission, who handles sensitive security matters.
It was without question a calamity for the Chinese military. But for the Americans, who lost a spy plane forced down by a Chinese interceptor jet in 2000, it was not a cause for sincere mourning. The US Seventh Fleet is ranged off the Chinese coast, in constant contact with Chinese planes and submarines probing its readiness to defend the self-ruled democracy on Taiwan.
Both America and Taiwan spend undisclosed billions trying to penetrate the wall of secrecy that surrounds China’s military build-up, which was criticised once again last week by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary.
Spies from Taiwan are known to have scored remarkable successes. In one recent case reported by The Washington Post, they placed in their president’s hands the proceedings of a secret standing committee meeting on Taiwan policy within days of its taking place.
American intelligence, by contrast, concentrates on a war fought with science and stealth to preserve its technological advantage.
For as long as the Chinese have tried to buy, steal or copy high-grade military technology — at least since the early 1990s — the CIA and the White House have sought to frustrate them. China relies on foreign know-how. British propellers from the Dowty company are fitted to its Y-8 early warning aircraft and radars made by Racal Electronics are installed on its naval surveillance planes.
But the crown jewels of electronic warfare are made in America, which means that China’s hunger for secrets can be exploited by its foes. Late in the cold war, the CIA supplied faulty computer items to the Soviets, which resulted in death and destruction. So suspicions of treachery in Beijing are bound to be reinforced by the tale of intrigue and deception that unfolded upon examination of what led to the fatal end of the KJ-2000.
“The PLA [People’s Liberation Army] air force and navy have long required airborne early warning aircraft,” stated a report by the US Congressional Research Service in November 2001. “Each is looking for 8-10 aircraft to supplement their own unsuccessful efforts.”
In 1999 the Chinese thought they had the perfect deal. A Russian Ilyushin-76 transport, serial number #762, was bought and flown to a military airfield in Israel, where it was fitted with the world’s most advanced Awacs system, the Phalcon, perfected by technicians at Israel Aircraft Industries. The cost: $250m (£135m).
Inevitably, the CIA heard of the deal and the issue went all the way to the White House, which exerted tremendous pressure on Israel.
On July 11, 2000, Ehud Barak, then the Israeli prime minister, broke off from peace talks at Camp David
to tell President Bill Clinton that the sale had been cancelled. Barak confided that he had sent a personal letter of regret to Jiang Zemin.
But Chinese persistence ensured the matter did not end there. In 2002, according to aviation specialist websites, aircraft #762, stripped of the Phalcon system, was flown from Israel back to Russia and on to an airfield in east China that is home to the Nanjing Research Institute of Technology.
Moreover, the Chinese technicians had not wasted their time in Israel. “It’s not unreasonable to believe that the Israelis offered the Chinese industrial participation to seal this high dollar deal,” said a US Department of Defence analyst, quoted in a report for the US Army War College.
“The Phalcon system makes extensive use of commercial off-the-shelf products, which gives easy access to the basic building blocks of the system,” the unnamed analyst added.
In 2003 aviation specialists photographed two IL-76 Awacs prototypes, by then codenamed KJ-2000, on test flights over Nanjing. One was #762, the other was coded B-4040.
Late last year the local aviation authorities — which in China are controlled by the military — bought sophisticated Monopulse secondary surveillance radars from Telephonics Corp, a New York-based subsidiary of the Griffon Corporation, which supplies the US Awacs fleet.
The radars were due for delivery early in 2006. Their purpose was stated to be civil aviation, but critics in Congress say the Chinese buy such items for “dual use” in military systems.
According to specifications published by the Federation of American Scientists, such radars can be closely integrated with an Awacs plane to enhance targets. There is now speculation among military and aviation attachés in the region that the ill-fated KJ-2000 may have been testing a hitherto unproven technical capability of precisely this nature when it crashed.
That should provide more than enough questions for Vice-Chairman Guo and his bloodhounds from the military commission to get their teeth into.
Bladerunner. can you please post the URL for that story? Thank you.
To me that story is nothing more than conjecture and speculation reguarding who or what type of equipment was on that aircraft.. We may never know what really happend to that aircraft ..whatever type it was.
However if this article is 50% true quite a blow was dealt to the PLAAF AWACS program.
To me that story is nothing more than conjecture and speculation reguarding who or what type of equipment was on that aircraft.. We may never know what really happend to that aircraft ..whatever type it was.
However if this article is 50% true quite a blow was dealt to the PLAAF AWACS program.
Re: whats the possibility
I don't understand why people keep on bringing KJ-2000 into this. It's not KJ-2000, it's one of the Y-8 platforms. That's why it happened in Anhui. That's why the engineers that died are from lab 38.
Just a side note though, although Y-8 may not be the best platform for all the surveillence aircrafts, it does show the urgency of the Y-9 program, which is designed specifically for such purpose. I would expect the Y-9 program to be far safer of a all-purpose platform.
bladerunner said:
I don't understand why people keep on bringing KJ-2000 into this. It's not KJ-2000, it's one of the Y-8 platforms. That's why it happened in Anhui. That's why the engineers that died are from lab 38.
Just a side note though, although Y-8 may not be the best platform for all the surveillence aircrafts, it does show the urgency of the Y-9 program, which is designed specifically for such purpose. I would expect the Y-9 program to be far safer of a all-purpose platform.
Roger604
Senior Member
Re: whats the possibility
Looking at the Sinodefence pictures of the Y-8, it looks like the engineers are putting everything conceivable on it -- discs, beams, big noses, sharp-noses, humps, panels, etc.
I think the main question is whether the accident was caused by an electric malfunction, or a loss of structural integrity. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was something completely mundane like if the Y-8's were simply overmodified and ended up being an ad hoc, rickety piece of flying doom.
As for the article, firstly it seems pretty anti-China biased. It quotes a 2001 US Congressional research report saying that China has been unsuccessful in obtaining AWACS! 2001?! We all know how quickly old news about the PLA becomes obsolete.
tphuang said:
Looking at the Sinodefence pictures of the Y-8, it looks like the engineers are putting everything conceivable on it -- discs, beams, big noses, sharp-noses, humps, panels, etc.
I think the main question is whether the accident was caused by an electric malfunction, or a loss of structural integrity. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was something completely mundane like if the Y-8's were simply overmodified and ended up being an ad hoc, rickety piece of flying doom.
As for the article, firstly it seems pretty anti-China biased. It quotes a 2001 US Congressional research report saying that China has been unsuccessful in obtaining AWACS! 2001?! We all know how quickly old news about the PLA becomes obsolete.