AS-365 Dolphins (No. NA-107) of NASC, MOI unfortunately crashed into the sea when hoisting personnel from the stranded “T.S. Taipei” in open waters of Shimen on March 11 of 2016. The pilot and instructor Lin Chen-Hsing, and the COA rescuer Tsai Tsung-Ta unfortunately lost their lives. According to the Aviation Safety Council (ASC) investigation results and after evaluating the benefits of repair the helicopter, NASC decided to gift NA-107 to vocational and technical schools to enrich students’ expertise and knowledge, foster more aerospace talents and extend its values.
Upon receipt of the said news, many vocational and technical schools strived for the opportunity of obtaining NA-107 in order to provide their students an opportunity of studying real machine. For the sake of fairness, all applicant schools were requested to submit a proposal to NASC before the public evaluation meeting was taken place on September 4. There were six school participated in the evaluation meeting and Fan Shu Vocational School was selected to receive the helicopter. Upon receipt of the news, the said schools immediately dispatched teachers to accompany the NASC personnel to survey the site, and then transported the helicopter back to school on September 30.
Teachers and students of the Aircraft Maintenance Department of Fan Shu Vocational School were extremely about being able to obtain such precious EASR-compliant learning resource. In the meantime, they also admired and felt sorry for these two heroes who scarified their lives in the mission.
AS-365 Dolphins is still an online helicopter model. Transferring the crashed NA-107 to school as a learning source enables students not only to ameliorate their knowledge and skills, but also to understand the importance of properly implementing maintenance works. The school expressed that, to manifest the full committed spirit of service of the deceased pilot Lin Chen-Hsing, they had renamed NA-107 to “Chen-Hsing” to memorize Lin forever.