The Chinese military is searching for a patrol plane that crashed into the South China Sea earlier this month, Taiwan's intelligence agency said on Thursday, becoming the first government in the region to officially confirm several days of speculation.

The March 1 accident involving a People's Liberation Army Air Force Y-8 anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft was first revealed by Vietnam-based maritime analyst and open-source intelligence reporter Duan Dang in a Sunday issue of his Substack newsletter, South China Sea Brief. Chinese authorities had announced a "surprise military exercise" from March 4 to 15 in order to conceal the search and rescue efforts within a maritime no-go zone, Dang wrote.

In Taipei, a report presented to the legislature by the National Security Bureau linked the area of China's naval drills to the loss of the PLAAF asset, which it said had "crashed into the South China Sea in early March." Taiwan's chief of intelligence, Chen Ming-tong, declined to disclose further details about the source of his agency's intelligence.

In his newsletter on Wednesday, Dang noted China was still "actively searching" for the lost maritime patrol aircraft, and had brought in navy, coast guard and seabed research vessels as part of the large-scale operation taking place in the waters between Vietnam and the southern Chinese province of Hainan.

The coast guard and research ships were only moving slowly within small areas, suggesting they were on a searching mission. Dozens of other naval ships were also continuously patrolling this area," Dang said.

That the PLAAF appears to have grounded its entire fleet of Y-8 ASW aircraft adds more credibility to the reports, said Su Tzu-yun, an associate research fellow with the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, Taiwan's top defense think tank. "Standard aviation safety protocol calls for the inspection of all similar aircraft types following an accident," he told Newsweek.

This post has been edited by Raddus: Mar 14 2022, 02:22 PM

Kekwa

so can use as pretext to take over SCS? untung la

Heard about this news few days ago, don't know if it's true,as usual China media is like Putin media, no way to know the truth...🤪🤪🤪

lol komunis countries are big on military surprises hahahahaaha