F-16
The signal of the F-16, which is based in Hualien in eastern Taiwan, disappeared from radar screens at 1:43 p.m., nearly half an hour after it took off from Hualien Air Base, the Air Force said in a statement.
The military has launched a search to locate the whereabouts of the missing single-seat jet, series number 6685, which was being flown by a major surnamed Wu (吳), according to the statement.
The National Rescue Command Center (NRCC) said in a separate statement that it had received information from the military that the jet went missing in the air above mountainous areas in Nuannuan District in Keelung and is participating in the search mission.
Aside from an S-70C helicopter dispatched by the military, the NRCC has deployed rescue aircraft from the National Airborne Service Corps. to look for the missing fighter jet, the NRCC said.
Firefighters in Keelung, New Taipei and Yilan County have also been asked to dispatch personnel to the area to facilitate the search, according to the NRCC.
Monday was the first day of the five-day, live-fire part of the annual Han Kuang military exercises, Taiwan's biggest annual military drill.
F-16 was created as a cheap, dispensable fighter which by design was expected to be used in big numbers and suffer big casualties in real war. The assumption was that there will be needed three F-16s per one Soviet fighter of that era to win the fight. For this reason F-16 have very cheap and simple (but also low weight and size) avionics in comparison to more advanced fighters. They are "stupid", and they need "smart" and expensive missiles, which are able to take care of most of the job. This also allowed to make it more attack aircraft (anti-ground) than a classic (anti-air) fighter, because its intelligence was "outsourced" to the missiles, which are easily replaced.
As a side effect, they are also favourite trade for American vassals. They are relatively cheap or the same price as competition (it costs more than 22 million USD though), and people easily overlook that the price of missiles for them is excessive, comparable to the price of aircraft themselves. The contracts for buying most of the missiles are separated from contracts for buying the planes, it's good for governmental PR departments.
F-35 maybe was imagined to be something like this (except "big casualties") very early in its development, but both the price and abilities made it unlikely very quickly. Although F-16 has bad avionics, it's quite agile for a fighter, and good pilot can outmanoeuvre many attacks in dog fight and even evade missiles. F-35 in comparison is like a flying brick, and skill won't help. It relies on its "stealth" factor, which by design is worse than F-22. And it can't maintain any "stealth" while carrying a sizeable amount of missiles. It won't also win any dogfight even by accident, because its cannon is not yet operational...