Taiwan grounds all 65 Brave Eagle trainers after air force confirms brake failure

The air force told lawmakers a mechanical fault caused the Gangshan runway excursion, the worst of nine brake-related incidents on the jet in three years.

TaiwanDefence

Taipei · 11 Nov 2026, 21:37 TST

2 min read

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A blue, white and red T-5 Brave Eagle jet trainer with two crew in the cockpit rolls along a runway beside a grass field — File photo: the T-5 Brave Eagle prototype, serial 11001, on the runway at Ching Chuan Kang air base in Taichung during its first-flight demonstration on 22 June 2020.Photo: Makoto Lin / Office of the President, CC BY 2.0Makoto Lin, Office of the President (Taiwan)https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2020._06.22_%E7%B8%BD%E7%B5%B1%E5%87%BA%E5%B8%AD%E3%80%8C%E7%A9%BA%E8%BB%8D%E6%96%B0%E5%BC%8F%E9%AB%98%E6%95%99%E6%A9%9F%E9%A6%96%E9%A3%9B%E5%B1%95%E7%A4%BA%E3%80%8D_%2850032430131%29.jpg

TAIPEI —

Taiwan's air force has grounded its entire fleet of 65 T-5 Brave Eagle advanced jet trainers for special inspections after one of the jets ran off the runway at Gangshan air base in Kaohsiung on 10 November, Focus Taiwan reported on 11 November, citing a military source. The source told the Central News Agency that the decision followed advice from Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation, the trainer's main contractor, and that flight training on the type would resume only once the inspections showed the aircraft had no technical problems.

The grounding came as the air force gave its first official account of the mishap. Appearing before the Legislative Yuan's Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on 11 November, Air Force Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Lee Ching-jan said the investigation had confirmed that the excursion was caused by a mechanical failure, according to Focus Taiwan and the Economic Daily News.

Lee also gave lawmakers a wider safety record for the jet. He said the Brave Eagle fleet had logged nine brake-related incidents over the past three years, but that this week's case was the only one in which the braking system failed seriously. In the other eight, he said, the aircraft's protective mechanisms worked and the jets came to a safe stop on the runway, keeping those events under control.

Lee was answering questions from Taiwan People's Party legislator Wang An-hsiang, who said reports of brake failures and serviceability problems on the Brave Eagle had surfaced several times and could amount to a flight safety warning. Wang urged the air force to review the problems and put forward measures to fix them.

The trainer, assigned to the Air Force Flight Training Command, was landing at about 11:45 local time on 10 November after a training sortie when its brakes malfunctioned, the United Daily News and TaiSounds reported. One of its main-wheel tyres burst, the jet veered off the runway and its main landing gear was damaged. The student pilot, a lieutenant, and the instructor, a lieutenant colonel, were not hurt.

It was the second landing mishap at the Gangshan training base in less than a week. On 4 November a T-34C basic trainer flown solo by a newly enrolled student bounced repeatedly on touchdown, damaging its nose gear support and losing its nose wheel, both outlets noted.

The grounding sidelines the aircraft that now carries the advanced stage of Taiwan's pilot training. TaiSounds noted that the Brave Eagle flies the advanced training course for student pilots, and that the last two production jets, the 65th and 66th, were flown from Ching Chuan Kang air base in Taichung to the Air Force Academy at Gangshan on 24 September 2026, with Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation chairman Tsao Chin-ping riding in the final aircraft.

Neither the air force nor the manufacturer has said how long the inspections will take, whether they extend beyond the braking system, or how advanced flight training for students will be handled while the fleet stays on the ground. The military source cited by the Central News Agency tied the return to flying only to the inspections finding no technical faults.