Taiwan military chief among 8 killed

Taiwan’s top military official was among eight people killed when a helicopter crash-landed on Thursday in a mountainous area near the capital, Taipei, the defence ministry has said.

The chief of general staff, air force general Shen Yi-ming, died in the incident while five of the 13 people onboard survived, the military.

The defence ministry said aviation authorities lost contact with the Black Hawk helicopter at 8.22am local time and it dispatched a rescue team. The helicopter had left Taipei on a mission to visit soldiers in the north-east county of Yilan.

Taiwan is due to hold presidential and parliamentary elections on 11 January. The president, Tsai Ing-wen, who is seeking re-election, cancelled all campaign activities until Saturday and urged authorities to make every effort at rescue. She was scheduled to deliver a speech at 3pm.

The United States, which has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan but is its strongest international backer and main arms supplier, sold the island 60 UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters in 2010. It was not immediately clear if the helicopter in Thursday’s incident was one of them.

It was the latest in a series of aviation accidents in Taiwan. In 2018 a Black Hawk helicopter crashed off the east coast, killing six people onboard, and an F-16 fighter jet crashed in a separate incident, killing a pilot.

In 2016 the navy fired a supersonic missile in error, hitting a fishing boat in waters that separate Taiwan from China.

China, which claims Taiwan as its territory to be brought under Beijing’s control by force if necessary, regularly calls the island the most sensitive issue in its ties with the US. _The Guardian