2 Pilots killed during aircraft test in China

China says two pilots died in aircraft carrier tests

Two Chinese test pilots were killed during development of the country’s first aircraft carrier fighter wing, state media said, in a rare admission of problems with the hugely popular naval program.

The admission came in a report by Xinhua saying President Xi Jinping had signed an order awarding honourary titles to all pilots in the first squadron to conduct take-off and landing tests aboard the Liaoning, China’s only aircraft carrier.

“Two test pilots of the squadron sacrificed their lives during the tests,” the report said. No details were given.

The original Xinhua report ran on August 28, but went largely overlooked at the time. It was picked up by US defence blogs and linked on Friday to the blog of the US Naval Institute.

People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper, rebuffed the report on Sunday, saying the US Naval Institute had misinterpreted the original Xinhua report. Citing PLA officials, the newspaper said that although the honoured squadron paticipated in the take-off and landing tests on Liaoning and that two of its test pilots were killed, they died in past accidents, not on Liaoning.   

China’s military still operates under a shroud of secrecy and no deadly accidents relating to the carrier had been reported in the past.

China announced it had begun flight tests on the Liaoning in late 2012, spurring a wave of patriotic pride in the country’s growing capabilities. State television ran hours of footage of planes landing and taking off, while internet users across the country posted photos of themselves recreating the carrier flight crews’ “all-clear” signal to the pilot.

Chinese carrier pilots fly the J-15 fighter-bomber, a copy of Russia’s Sukhoi Su-33.

China spent a decade refurbishing a derelict Soviet-era carrier bought from Ukraine before commissioning it as the Liaoning in 2012. It is part of a major expansion of the Chinese navy that includes sophisticated new surface ships and submarines. The ship is slower and smaller than US aircraft carriers and doesn’t carry as many aircraft.

The Liaoning is still conducting sea trials and Chinese defence officials haven’t said when, or even if, it will receive its full complement of aircraft.

On December 5, last year, a Chinese ship accompanying the Liaoning was involved in a near collision with a US Navy cruiser, the USS Cowpens, when it was operating in international waters in the South China Sea. US Navy officials said the Cowpens manoeuvred to avoid the collision, but it marked the two nations’ most serious sea confrontation in years. - scmp.com Associated Press in Beiging