The Taiwan Air Force has purchased a batch of 70 Martin-Baker Mk.16 ejection seats to equip its fleet of F-5E and F-5F Tiger II fighters. The new seats are of the zero-zero type, which allow safe ejection even if the aircraft is stationary on the ground (zero altitude and zero speed).
The ROCAF Chief of Staff, Huang Chih-wei, stated at a meeting of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and National Defense that the first seats should arrive in the country before the end of this year. He said the full order of 70 seats is scheduled for delivery next year and that installation would be complete on all 45 F-5E/F jets by the end of 2022.
Different variants of the Mk.16 are used in the Eurofighter Typhoon, F-35 Lightning II and Dassault Rafale fighters and in the T-38 Talon, T-6 Texan II, TAI Hürkuş and KT-1 Woongbi trainer aircraft. Taiwan Tigers are still equipped with the old Northrop Improved seats, where the pilot carries his own parachute.
The new ejection seats were ordered by ROCAF after experts recommended replacing the current ones, which they said were of outdated design. This came during an investigation into the cause of an aerial collision between two F-5E jets in March that left two pilots dead.
Captain Pan Ying-chun and 1st Lieutenant Lo Shang-hua died after their fighter jets collided during a training flight over Pingtung County in southern Taiwan. Forensic evidence revealed that Lo suffered head trauma causing intracranial hemorrhaging, later succumbing to neurogenic shock.
The circumstances of Lieutenant Lo's death were the same as that of another pilot, Chu Kuan-meng, who died in another F-5E accident in October 2020. Military experts concluded that the two most likely died as they were ejected from the aircraft and their heads hit the canopy because of the F-5E's outdated ejection seat design.
According to Su Tzu-yun, a senior analyst at the Institute of National Defense and Security Research, the F-5E's ejection seats are over 40 years old, meaning that safe ejection is only possible if the plane hits a certain altitude and airspeed and is flying at a certain angle.
Under any other circumstances, the pilot's head could hit the canopy, knocking him unconscious or causing his death, Su said.
In March, Taiwan's Ministry of Defense said it had allocated $28,1 million to replace ejection seats on the Air Force's fleet of F-5Es and F-5Fs. In addition to the F-5E/F, ROCAF operates AIDC F-CK-1, F-16 Fighting Falcon and Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters.
