BSS
  15 Mar 2025, 20:12

Chinese military jet crashes, pilot safely ejects

BEIJING, March 15, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A Chinese naval fighter jet crashed on
Saturday during a training exercise but its pilot successfully ejected from
the plane, the military said.

The fighter jet, from the Chinese military's Southern Theater Command,
crashed in an open area in the southern island province of Hainan, the navy
said in a statement on social media.

The southern command oversees some of the country's most sensitive areas
including the South China Sea, where there has been a spate of violent
clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels in recent years around
disputed reefs and islands in the area.

"The pilot successfully ejected, and no collateral damage was caused on the
ground," the statement said.

An investigation into the cause of the crash has been launched and the navy
is organising efforts to handle the aftermath, it added.

China has for years sought to expand its presence in contested areas of the
sea, brushing aside an international ruling that its claim to most of the
waterway has no legal basis.

In recent months, Beijing has more firmly asserted its territorial claims in
the South China Sea, where countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and the
Philippines are defending their own claims.

Last month, the Philippine Coast Guard condemned "dangerous" manoeuvres by a
Chinese Navy helicopter it said had flown within metres of a surveillance
flight carrying a group of journalists over the contested Scarborough Shoal.