TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Air Force has canceled plans to upgrade five UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters to make them capable of nighttime search and rescue missions.

During a Legislative Yuan meeting on Monday (April 11), Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Shi-ing (蔡適應) asked about the status of the Black Hawk upgrade plan. Air Force Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Huang Chi-wei (黃志偉) said the U.S. had set the price tag at NT$4.3 billion (US$148 million), which exceeded the budget by about NT$1.96 billion.

Purchasing new Black Hawk helicopters would cost as much as NT$18 billion, CNA cited him as saying. Therefore, the Air Force decided to drop its request for upgrades and designated its Super Puma EC22s and Sikorsky S-70Cs to carry out nighttime search and rescue missions instead.

Regarding the Navy's plan to purchase new Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk anti-submarine helicopters from the U.S., Navy Chief of Staff Chiang Cheng-kuo (蔣正國) pointed out the case has been included in this year's budget and that the letter of request will be submitted to the Ministry of Defense for review.