Taipei - Taiwan's Defence Minister Tsai Ming-hsien said Friday the military would not give searching for a missing F-16 fighter jet, which was suspected to have crashed into the sea along with the pilot. "Both the navy and the air force will continue their actions in the next three days and will not give up their search and rescue efforts," Tsai said.
He also asked the air force to uphold flight safety measures to reduce future accidents.
The air force has already grounded its F-16 fleet for thorough inspection after one of the jets vanished from radar screens Tuesday. The warplanes would resume their training and other missions as soon as the inspection was completed, ministry officials said.
The single-seat F-16 took off from Hualien airbase on the east coast at 6:50 pm Tuesday on a night training exercise, and lost contact with the base at about 7:18 pm, when the jet was at about 43 nautical miles off the coast.
The air force launched a sea and air search for the jet and its pilot Ting Shih-pao, but has not found the plane's wreckage or Ting yet.
There was no SOS signal from the F-16 before it vanished from the radar screen.
