MANILA
\nPhilippine rescuers on Wednesday found the wreckage of a fighter jet and the bodies of two crewmen sent to combat communist rebels in a mountainous region of the country\u2019s south.
\nThe FA-50 fighter jet had gone missing a day earlier while on a mission to provide air support for troops fighting guerrillas in northern Mindanao.
\nLt. Gen. Luis Rex Bergante, commander of Eastern Mindanao Command, said the two crewmen had been found inside the wreckage.
\n\u201cThe bodies were found inside the aircraft. There was an attempt to open a parachute and eject,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cThe aircraft was a total wreck. The aircraft smashed through the trees in the mountain.\u201d
\nLt. Col. Francisco Garello of the 4th Infantry Division said the wreckage of the missing jet was found on Mount Kalatungan.
\nLocated in Mindanao\u2019s Bukidnon province, the 2,880-meter Kalatungan is the fifth-tallest mountain in the Philippines.
\nBergante said bringing the servicemen\u2019s remains down the mountainside was now the top priority.
\nIn a statement, the air force said it had temporarily \u201cgrounded its FA-50 fleet\u201d and would \u201censure a thorough investigation into the accident,\u201d the cause of which remains unknown.
\nThe crashed jet was one of a dozen FA-50s the Philippines purchased from South Korea in the past decade.
\nGarello said early Wednesday that the search had been suspended overnight due to the danger of \u201ccommunist groups\u201d believed to be operating in the area.
\nOn Tuesday, he said his division had called in air support during a firefight with the New People\u2019s Army, a long-running Maoist insurgency now believed to have fewer than 2,000 fighters.
\nThe jets flew out of Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base, which shares a runway with the airport in Cebu, the Philippines\u2019 second-largest city.
\nAir force spokeswoman Col. Consuelo Castillo told reporters Tuesday it was the \u201cfirst major incident\u201d involving its squadron of FA-50s, which have been used in exercises over the disputed South China Sea.
\nThe FA-50s have been flown 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.
\nOn Wednesday, Castillo said the air force hoped the investigation would be \u201cdone thoroughly but swift enough for us not to sacrifice our operational readiness\u201d given the fighters\u2019 key role in maritime patrols.
\nShe also said the air force has proposed purchasing 12 more FA-50s, a request under consideration at the Department of National Defense.
\nThere have been a number of deadly crashes involving Philippine military aircraft in recent years.
\nTwo navy pilots were killed last April when their Robinson R22 helicopter crashed near a market south of the capital Manila during a training flight.
\nTwo PAF pilots were killed in January 2023 when their Marchetti SF260 turboprop plane crashed into a rice field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANILA Philippine rescuers on Wednesday found the wreckage of a fighter jet and the bodies of two crewmen sent to combat communist rebels in a mountainous region of the country\u2019s south. The FA-50 fighter jet had gone missing a day earlier while on a mission to provide air support for troops fighting guerrillas in northern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-465426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n