Kuala Lumpur : Malaysia found two air force officers dead in a northeastern forest on Thursday after their fighter jet went missing during a training exercise, the chief of the country's air force told reporters.
The task of upgrading Malaysia's ageing fleet of fighter jets is being complicated by defence budget cuts, as Prime Minister Najib Razak grapples with growing public discontent over the rising cost of living.
French arms maker Dassault Aviation SA, which builds the Rafale fighter jet, is seen as a frontrunner to supply up to 18 new aircraft to Malaysia's air force in a deal that could be worth more than $2 billion.
"We saw the bodies and their parachutes, which means they had ejected from the plane," Affendi told a news conference broadcast on Facebook by Malaysian publication BH Online.
Authorities lost contact with the British-made Hawk 108 fighter jet half an hour into the exercise, Affendi said, adding that a panel has been set up to investigate the incident, and the air force will temporarily ground all its Hawk 108 aircraft.
The last mishap involving a Malaysian-owned Hawk fighter jet was a 2003 jet crash off the coast of Kuantan during a training flight, killing both occupants.
In May last year, two air force officers suffered minor injuries when their Aermacchi MB-339CM training jet crashed because of a faulty engine on a training flight, media said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
The task of upgrading Malaysia's ageing fleet of fighter jets is being complicated by defence budget cuts, as Prime Minister Najib Razak grapples with growing public discontent over the rising cost of living.
French arms maker Dassault Aviation SA, which builds the Rafale fighter jet, is seen as a frontrunner to supply up to 18 new aircraft to Malaysia's air force in a deal that could be worth more than $2 billion.
"We saw the bodies and their parachutes, which means they had ejected from the plane," Affendi told a news conference broadcast on Facebook by Malaysian publication BH Online.
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Authorities lost contact with the British-made Hawk 108 fighter jet half an hour into the exercise, Affendi said, adding that a panel has been set up to investigate the incident, and the air force will temporarily ground all its Hawk 108 aircraft.
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The last mishap involving a Malaysian-owned Hawk fighter jet was a 2003 jet crash off the coast of Kuantan during a training flight, killing both occupants.
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In May last year, two air force officers suffered minor injuries when their Aermacchi MB-339CM training jet crashed because of a faulty engine on a training flight, media said.
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© Thomson Reuters 2017
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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