A Philippines fighter jet is missing after flying a mission against communist rebels in the country's south, although hopes remain its two-member crew could still be alive.
Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala told AFP the missing jet was part of a squadron sent "to provide air support" to troops engaged in a firefight overnight in Mindanao's Bukidnon province.
It was still too early to say if the fighter had crashed or made an emergency landing, air force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo told AFP.
[MAP 1]However, locator beacons for both the crew and the FA-50 were active in a potentially "hot" or hostile area, she said in an interview with local television.
"Beacons worn by the two crew as well as on the plane are emitting signals, and troops are working their way to the general area," which was mountainous and forested, Castillo told ABS-CBN.
Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Garello of the 4th Infantry Division told AFP that air support had been called in overnight during a firefight with the New People's Army.
"There was a firefight between the 403rd Infantry Brigade (Philippine Army) and the rebels, and they made a request for air support, so the air force supported the encounter," Garello said.
The long-running Maoist insurgency is now believed to have fewer than 2,000 guerilla fighters.
Search efforts underway
While the air force declined to disclose a location, a disaster official in Bukidnon province told AFP preparations were being made for local forest rangers to search the area where the fighter's signal was lost.
"We are sending two teams up tonight to the area, one in Mount Kilakiron and another in Mount Kalatungan," said Ramil Gulahab, an air force reservist.
At 2,880 metres, Kalatungan is the fifth-tallest mountain in the Philippines.
"They will conduct a search there because that was where the signal was lost," he said.
[MAP SEARCH AREA]The fighters flew out of Mactan–Benito Ebuen Air Base, which shares a runway with the airport in Cebu, the Philippines's second-largest city.
Castillo told reporters it was the "first major incident involving" its squadron of FA-50s, which have been used in exercises over the disputed South China Sea.
The Philippines has a dozen of the fighters, which it purchased from South Korea in the past decade.
Deadly crashes in recent years
The FA-50s have taken part in joint air patrols with treaty ally the United States over contested areas of the South China Sea, where China and the Philippines have been involved in increasingly tense confrontations.
Beijing claims almost the entirety of the crucial waterway, through which trillions of dollars in commerce transits each year, despite a ruling from The Hague that its assertion has no legal basis.
Philippine outlet the Inquirer reported in January that the government was considering purchasing 12 more FA-50s.
There have been a number of deadly crashes involving Philippine military aircraft in recent years.
Two navy pilots were killed last April when their Robinson R22 helicopter crashed near a market south of the capital Manila during a training flight.
Two PAF pilots were killed in January 2023 when their Marchetti SF260 turboprop plane crashed into a rice field.
AFP/ABC
