Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-Yung paid a special visit to the 2nd Wing of NASC stationed in Taichung on January 8th to understand the duty implementation status and maintenance works of AS-365 Dauphin and UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter fleet. Minister of the Interior not only urged the fleet to properly implement aircraft maintenance works, pay great attention to aviation safety, but also affirmed NASC for effectively optimizing its rescue capacity.
On January 2, 2020, a UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter under the Air Rescue Group, Ministry of National Defense (MND) unfortunately crashed into the valley of Tonghou River in Mount Hongludi, New Taipei City when flying from Air Force Song Shan Air Force Base to Dongaoling Radar Station in Suao, Yilan County. This accident has caused the death of a number of general officers and, among aviation accidents of aircrafts carrying senior military officers, set a new record of losing general officers with the highest rank. As NASC is subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior and supports air rescue missions, Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-Yung therefore, in the concern of possible impact to the morale of NASC, paid a special visit to NASC’s fleet stationed in Ching Chuan Kang Air Force Base, Taichung. Minister Hsu expressed that it was truly regrettable to see such accident happening to the Air Rescue Group of MND; and that, when the accident occurred, NASC also immediately dispatched helicopters to implement the rescue mission to save the lives without giving up any hope.
Minister Hsu said that, confronted by severe climate change resulted from global warming, all disaster prevention and rescue units should break the conventional territory-based thinking to make an adequate rescue equipment plan; take necessary preventive measures; establish a regional joint-defense mechanism; and carefully and better respond to different or composite disasters. As NASC is currently upgrading fleet equipment and personnel, he also instructed NASC to ensure that the delivery of Black Hawk helicopters and progress thereof were on schedule; and to make reasonable plan on the equipment and personnel configuration after the old aircrafts were discharged from military services, leaving no blank space for the implementation of rescue mission. Minister Hsu emphasized that the weather was often unfavorable when NASC received a mission; and, to execute such high-risk missions, it was a must to conduct regular trainings based on different scenarios and with intensive practice. He said that this would help the crew to improve their teamwork spirit and disaster response capability; learn from mistakes and better their rescue skills; and implement the missions immediately upon receipt of the mission.
Finally, after inspected maintenance works of the fleet, Minister Hsu expressed his confidence in NASC and encouraged NASC to bring the teamwork spirit into fully play, perform intensive mission-based trainings, implement maintenance strategy, abide by work rules, follow standard working process to check the weather conditions and aviation safety influential factors before taking a flight, carefully perform pre-flight check-ups, and establish an all-weather, 3-dimensional and high-mobility air rescue system to better protect the lives and assets of our people.