Taiwan Air Force apologizes to Coast Guard over errant bomb drop

Taiwan's Air Force on Tuesday apologized to the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) after one of its F-16 jets badly missed its target on a bomb drop during a training session last week and sent the bomb too close to a CGA vessel, Report informs via Focus Taiwan.

Air Force Chief of Staff General Tsao Chin-ping said the incident occurred on August 9 when a two-seat model F-16V missed its set target at sea and dropped a 2,000-pound (900 kg) MK-84 bomb that fell in waters off Pingtung's Jioupeng military base during a training session.

The bomb sent off a shockwave that affected a manned-CGA vessel, though no casualties were reported because the location where the bomb landed was still several nautical miles from the vessel, Tsao said at a regular briefing on Tuesday.

The Air Force has apologized to the CGA and will punish the pilot as well as his instructor for failing to properly supervise the bomb drop drill, Tsao said.