Taipei: Taiwan's Air Force has announced plans to urge the United States to expedite the installation of automatic ground collision avoidance systems (Auto-GCAS) in its fleet of F-16V jets. This comes in the wake of an F-16V jet going missing, with the pilot, Air Force Captain Hsin Po-yi, unaccounted for after an incident on Tuesday. The Air Force hopes to complete the installation process by the end of this year, if possible.

According to Focus Taiwan, the recent incident has brought renewed attention to Taiwan's initiative to equip all F-16V aircraft with Auto-GCAS, initially scheduled for completion in 2028. The system assesses potential risks of ground or sea collisions using data such as aircraft speed and terrain and automatically adjusts the aircraft's attitude and altitude if the pilot does not respond. Air Force Inspector General Chiang Yi-cheng explained at a news conference that the system is being modified in collaboration with the U.S. National Guard, which also operates F-16 jets.

Chiang expressed the Air Force's determination to push the U.S. military to expedite the system's completion. "We hope the work will proceed as planned, if not ahead of schedule, so that we can receive Auto-GCAS and related equipment by the end of the year," he stated.

The urgency for such systems was highlighted by a previous incident during the Han Kuang military exercises in June 2018, where Air Force Major Wu Yen-ting was killed when his F-16 crashed into Wufen Mountain. Following this, the Air Force committed to equipping all F-16s with Auto-GCAS.

Su Tzu-yun, a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, indicated that while Auto-GCAS is standard on Taiwan's newly purchased F-16V Block 70 jets, retrofitting the 139 upgraded F-16V Block 20 aircraft under the Peace Phoenix Rising project presents challenges. This involves complex integration with existing systems and structural modifications.

Su emphasized the cost-effectiveness of investing in collision-avoidance systems, noting that hundreds of pilots' lives have been saved by Auto-GCAS. He also suggested that the Air Force could consider issuing pilots military-grade watches, providing critical flight data in scenarios where cockpit instruments fail.