China: Crash of Chinese Surveillance Plane Hurts Effort on Warning System

NYT ^ | 06/07/06 | JOSEPH KAHN

[TigerLikesRooster]

June 7, 2006

Crash of Chinese Surveillance Plane Hurts Effort on Warning System

By JOSEPH KAHN

BEIJING, June 6 — China's efforts to field an early-warning aircraft that could help it project power far beyond its borders, and challenge American intervention in any conflict with Taiwan, were dealt at least a temporary blow by the crash of a surveillance aircraft on Sunday, defense specialists in the region said.

The aircraft, described by two government-controlled newspapers in Hong Kong as a Chinese-made airborne warning and control system, or Awacs, plane, slammed into a hillside in central Anhui Province, killing all 40 technicians and crew members on board.

The crash was described as one of the worst disasters in the history of the Chinese Air Force. The Chinese news media said that Guo Boxiong, a top military official in Beijing, was supervising the investigation into the accident.

The two Hong Kong newspapers, Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po, carried articles on Monday that described the crash in more detail than did the rest of the Chinese news media. They did not identify the model of the plane, but regional experts suggested that it was most likely the KJ-2000, an early-warning aircraft that was developed using mostly technology developed in China.

In addition to the loss of the aircraft, one of four of its kind that China has built, experts said the deaths of the 40 people on board, including 35 electronics and avionics technicians, could hinder one of China's most pressing military modernization programs.

[TigerLikesRooster]

As the article said, this would delay the schedule for invasion of Taiwan. Because their best crews and technicians were all wiped-out. There are three more AWACS, but probably they do not have many proficient crews and technicians. It takes time to grow talented people who can man and maintain the planes. A lot longer than producing another AWACS from its factory.

Related Thread:

China: The Crashed Plane Was a New AWACS Plane China Developed

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[Lurker]

I'm trying real hard to feel bad for the dead here, but I just can't seem to get too worked up about it.

L

[pageonetoo]

How does a flying radar system find it's way into a hill? Was Ron Brown on board?

[rhombus]

How does a flying radar system find it's way into a hill?

This radar looks at airspace not groundspace. There's another flying radar that looks at the ground (Joint STARS).

[pageonetoo]

Duh! Are you saying they have no ground reference radars on this supposedly sophisticated craft?

(I was an FT in the navy...)

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Conspiracy Theory: HARRP was used to scramble the plane's navigation.

[Blueflag]

What's weird is that both Yahoo and Google return NO HITS on "Gongjing-2000 AWACS"

hmmmmm


only the FR threads show up on yahoo.

[rhombus]

Not at all. I assume now your original statement was just sarcasm.

[azhenfud]

"How does a flying radar system find it's way into a hill?"

Lemme guess....It was looking up?

[SampleMan]

As the article said, this would delay the schedule for invasion of Taiwan. Because their best crews and technicians were all wiped-out. There are three more AWACS, but probably they do not have many proficient crews and technicians. It takes time to grow talented people who can man and maintain the planes. A lot longer than producing another AWACS from its factory.

It might delay it, or your post could become one of the footnotes in, How China Lost the War for Taiwan

[pageonetoo]

Not at all. I assume now your original statement was just sarcasm.

I thought the "Ron Brown" mention would give it away!

[rhombus]

I thought the "Ron Brown" mention would give it away!

I didn't know he was an AWACS operator? ;-)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

40 technicians ?

[AppyPappy]

Perhaps there was a structural failure.

[FreedomPoster]

The back of those things are filled with gear and technicians. Radar operators, air tasking controllers, and such.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Seems like a lot of people to me.

[TigerLikesRooster]

RE #8

It is known as KJ-2000 in military circle.

[herkbird]

I would imagine having that high of number of technician's on board was for some on the job training maybe. I don't know how many people ride in an American AWACS, but I.m sure it is much less. I would imagine that the Chinese lack the expertise at this point in time to train AWACS type people on ground based simulation equipment that is equivalent to being in the actual aircraft.

I used to work on course ware that trained pilot's how to use the auto pilot coupled to the flight director such that they could learn the procedures for Instrument landings. We had actual computerized video of the instrument panel and all the controls so that the aircrew could learn how everything functioned and reacted as different selections and adjustments were made. The training wasn't that hard to develop and was worlds ahead of the old book and slide show and use your imagination type training.

We showed how equipment would respond if certain items failed, or a circuit breaker popped. It provided training that would take years to learn in an actual aircraft, as disabling some equipment in an instrument landing would be just to dangerous to demonstrate in a real aircraft.

They should have had a ground radar system, although that only shows the altitude directly under an aircraft. I would still think there would be a screen that displayed a GPS like picture of the landmass they were flying over and show the max altitudes of the ground in the area they were flying in.

They may have been so busy training a crew or what ever that they just flew the plane into a mountain. An American Passenger plane crashed into the Florida everglades because the flight crew became so interested in whether the problem was a faulty light bulb, that they failed to notice they were slowly flying into the ground which killed most on board the flight. An Airplane is not forgiving for those who lose track of what they are trained to do, fly safely with full attention to your situation.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

A friend at Island Creek Coal explained how Chinese open pit coal mines operated. Island Creek set up the dragline to run with 1 operator and two oilers. The Chinese put five operators on duty and 15 guys with grease guns.