On November 25, an E-2K airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft of Taiwan’s Air Force went off the runway while landing at an airbase in Pingtung County, the Air Force Command Headquarters said.

The Air Force said that the United States-manufactured plane assigned to the Pingtung airbase was returning from a training flight when the incident occurred around 11:08 a.m. The incident didn’t result in any casualties. 

The pilot was apparently forced to perform a belly landing at the military airfield because the landing gear did not deploy. The military said a special task force had been established to investigate the malfunction’s root cause.

Pingtung Air Base is a former joint-use airfield fully taken over by the ROCAF in 2011. It is situated on Taiwan’s southwest coast. The 6th Tactical Mixed Wing is now housed there.

The 20th Electronic Warfare Group, which flies two E-2K aircraft—a Taiwanese variant of the Northrop Grumman E-2C Hawkeye Airborne Early Warning Aircraft—has been a part of the wing since 2000.

The Air Force is said to have six E-2K early warning aircraft. While the military has concealed the specific performance of the aircraft, each plane is known to be capable of tracking a target up to 500 kilometers away.

The E-2K is an all-weather early warning and control aircraft made by Northrop Grumman that has eight-blade propellers, modernized radar and surveillance systems, and cutting-edge…