Taiwan shelves 9 Mirage jets due to lack of spare parts

Nov 8, 2009, 14:44 GMT

Taipei - The Taiwan Air Force has shelved nine Mirage 2000-5 jets due to a lack of spare parts supplied by France, a newspaper report said Sunday.

The China Times quoted an unnamed Air Force official as saying that the jets had been mothballed with assistance from France. The planes had undergone tests so that they could be reactivated, even for combat missions, he said.

The delivery of pare parts could resume by the year-end, the official said.

The China Times report comes one month after lawmaker Lin Yu-fang told parliament that difficulty in obtaining spare parts for maintenance had prompted the air force to cut each Mirage pilot's monthly training from 15 to six hours.

Taiwan ordered 150 F-16A/Bs from the United States and 60 Mirage 2000-5s from France in 1992 as part of a defence acquisition deal. The F-16 and Mirage, together with 130 self-developed Indigenous Defence Fighters (IDFs), form the backbone of Taiwan's Air Force fleet.

Taiwan has also met difficulty in obtaining 60 F-16C/Ds from the US to replace the outdated F-16A/Bs.

Taiwan and US analysts have said US President Barack Obama may approve the F-16C/D sale to Taiwan after he visits China later this month.

China, which sees Taiwan as its breakaway province, has warned the international community not to launch formal ties with or sell weapons to Taiwan.

In all, 171 countries recognize China while only 23 mostly-small nations recognize Taiwan, the seat of the exiled Republic of China government since 1949.