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Navy commander and officers disciplined

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Navy commander and officers disciplined
Navy Commander Admiral Huang Shu-kuang (left) said Friday he had requested disciplinary measures against himself from the Ministry of National Defense...

Navy commander asks for punishment

Navy commander and officers disciplined

Navy Commander Admiral Huang Shu-kuang (left) said Friday he had requested disciplinary measures against himself from the Ministry of National Defense...

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Navy Commander Admiral Huang Shu-kuang said Friday he had requested disciplinary measures against himself from the Ministry of National Defense over the fatal accidental firing of a missile.
On Friday morning, a Chinchiang-class corvette located near Kaohsiung fired a supersonic Hsiung Feng III missile by accident. It landed in the Taiwan Strait near Penghu County after hitting a Taiwanese fishing trawler and killing its captain.
The blunder happened during a drill and was explained as a result of “a grave human error” by a missile operator who probably did not follow standard operating procedures, the military said.
At a news conference at the naval base of Zuoying near Kaohsiung Friday evening, Huang said that all senior officers in charge of the corvette needed to shoulder responsibility, but that in the lower ranks only the sergeant who fired the missile should be punished.
A total of seven officers eventually received demerits, including Huang, while the sergeant at the missile, named by the media as Kao Chia-chun, was slapped with two major demerits along with his immediate supervisor, media reports said.
According to the news conference, during a drill Kao had mistakenly chosen a mode which would allow the missile to be fired, while no more senior officer was present to supervise his actions.
The fishing trawler happened to be in the area theoretically targeted by the missile, which would not have mattered if it had not been fired, officers said.
The four officers from the corvette, including Kao, were taken away for interrogation to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office, reports said Friday evening.
It was the third news conference of the day for the military. During the morning, the Ministry of National Defense announced that a missile had been fired, then during the afternoon it acknowledged that the death of a ship captain was caused by the missile or at least fragments of it hitting his fishing trawler.
President Tsai Ing-wen, in Los Angeles on her way back from a Latin American tour, and Premier Lin Chuan said investigators should get to the bottom of the matter.
As the missile did not cross the median line in the Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and China, the incident was not seen as threatening cross-strait relations, commentators said.