Manila, Philippines—Rescuers on Wednesday combed a mountainous region of the southern Philippines for a missing FA-50 fighter jet and its two-man crew, after halting operations overnight due to the danger posed by guerrillas.
The fighter went missing a day earlier while on a mission to provide air support for troops fighting communist rebels in northern Mindanao.
Lieutenant-Colonel Francisco Garello of the 4th Infantry Division told Agence France Presse (AFP) the search had been suspended overnight and restarted early in the morning.
Working at night would “endanger our troops conducting the rescue operations. There are communist groups in that area,” Garello said.
The Philippine Air Force said Tuesday evening it was too early to determine if the plane had crashed or managed to make an emergency landing.
But transponders for both the fighter and two crewmen were said to be active.
“Beacons worn by the two crew as well as on the plane are emitting signals, and troops are working their way to the general area,” air force spokesperson Colonel Consuelo Castillo told a local television outlet.
Garello had earlier said his division called in air support during a firefight with the New People’s Army, a long-running Maoist insurgency now believed to have fewer than 2,000 fighters.
Forest rangers in the province were also preparing to join the search, a local disaster official told AFP on Tuesday.
“We are sending two teams up tonight to the area, one in Mount Kilakiron and another in Mount Kalatungan,” said Ramil Gulahab, an air force reservist.
At 2,880 meters (9,450 feet), Kalatungan is the fifth-tallest mountain in the Philippines.
The Philippines has a dozen FA-50 jet fighters that it purchased from South Korea in the past decade.
The fighters have taken part 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.
Philippine outlet the Inquirer reported in January that the government was considering purchasing 12 more FA-50s.
