Want China Times
February 27, 2015
Tseng Dar-jen, Sept. 15, 2014. (File photo/Yen Chien-lung)
Taiwan said Thursday that it will deploy military aircraft to warn any passenger planes that cross the halfway line in the Taiwan Strait in violation of civil aviation regulations.
The warning was issued by deputy transport minister Tseng Dar-jen as China prepares to begin using four new civil flight routes near the Taipei Flight Information Region with effect from March 5.
Tseng said China’s unilateral declaration of new flight routes is against the civil aviation convention and his ministry will not accept such a move, in the interests of flight safety.
In January, Beijing announced that it will start using four new flight paths on March 5–a south-north route coded M503 that runs close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait, and three east-west routes coded W121, W122 and W123, respectively, that intersect with M503 en route to cities on China’s southeastern coast.
Beijing has said the actual flight paths will be four nautical miles west of the drawn routes, but that assurance has not dispelled Taipei’s concerns, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said earlier this month.
The head of MAC and his Chinese counterpart were scheduled to meet Feb. 7 to discuss the issue and other relevant matters but the meeting was postponed after a TransAsia Airways flight crashed in a Taipei river Feb. 4.
