This morning at 1 am (the 6th), the Minister of Interior Yeh Jiunn-Rong received reports from the Director General of NASC Tung Chien-Cheng and Director of National Rescue Command Center Chen Wen-Lung about the disconnection of NASC Black Hawk during its implementation of medical transfer mission in open waters of Lanyu. After understanding the situation, Minister Yeh immediately instructed the Center to carry out a full-scale search and rescue mission. Later at 7 am this morning, Minister Yeh then visited National Rescue Command Center and NASC to listen to the mission report to understand the mission background of the disconnected Black Hawk, including the weather at the time; crew and passenger background; and efforts that have been done to rescue the Black Hawk so far. Minister Yeh demanded to call all land, sea and air forces into action to find the Black Hawk as soon as possible and not to give up any hope. Deputy General Director of NASC Wang Chi-Tung immediately headed to Taitung to set the forward command center and port the current conditions to Premier Lai during this period.
Yesterday at 23:09 (the 5th), the NASC UH-60M helicopter (No. NA-706) took off from Taitung and flew to Lanyu to implement the EMS transfer mission. Three minutes after it took off from Lanyu at 23:48, the helicopter immediately disconnected and disappeared from radar screen. Six people on the helicopter (2 pilots, 1 crew chief remained missing, 1 patient, 1 family member and 1 nurse) remained missing.
Upon receipt of the notification, National Rescue Command Center immediately dispatched the UH-60M helicopter of NASC, MOI and EC-225 helicopter of Ministry of National Defense to implement the search and rescue mission. At 1:03 am on the 6th, the UH-60M Black Hawk of NASC took off from Taitung. Later at 01:26, the EC-225 helicopter of Ministry of National Defense (MND) took off from Chiayi. The land search and rescue mission is carried out in mountain and coastal areas nearby Lanyu Airport by the police, fire-fighters and coastal patrol personnel of Lanyu, whereas the sea rescue mission is conducted by the navy’s La Fayette-class frigate and five CGA frigates in open waters of where the helicopter was mission. The radio station also continued to request nearby ships to head towards the location to assist rescuers in finding the helicopter.
National Rescue Command Center already planned to, from 5 am to 8:30 pm today (the 6th), dispatch one rescue aircraft every two hours to search for the helicopter. In total, 7 sorties (of MND or NASC) will be flown to implement the rescue mission. It is expected that, together with the capacities of police, fire-fighters, coastal patrol personnel, navy and CGA frigates, the lives will be timely saved and we will not give up any hope.