China, U.S. stage joint maritime search-and-rescue exercise

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China, U.S. stage joint maritime search-and-rescue exercise

(China Military Online) 08:44, September 12, 2013

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HAWAII, Sep 11 (ChinaMil) ---- The taskforce of the Navy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLAN) which is visiting the United States, Australia and New Zealand held a joint maritime search-and-rescue exercise with the U.S. Navy in the waters near Hawaii at 10:30 on September 9, 2013, local time, after wrapping up its visit to Hawaii.

The two sides dispatched four warships and three helicopters in the first joint maritime search-and-rescue exercise that the Chinese and the U.S. navies have staged in the past seven years.

The joint exercise was composed of four stages with ten subjects, and was participated in by nearly 1,000 officers and men, the guided missile destroyer "Qingdao", the guided missile frigate "Linyi" and one helicopter "Dauphin" of the PLAN, and the guided missile cruiser "USS Lake Erie", one auxiliary ship, one helicopter "Seahawk" and one helicopter "Black Hawk" of the U.S. Navy.

During the exercise, the two navies made many leapfrog achievements, such as the first helicopters' formation flight, the first establishment of joint damage control team, the first search of the same waters by air forces and so on.

According to Wei Gang, commander of the Chinese naval taskforce and chief of staff of the North China Sea Fleet of the PLAN, the exercise is of great significance which lies in that the two sides explored the methods for organizing, commanding and conducting joint search-and-rescue, improving PLAN's capability for conducting search-and-rescue missions jointly with foreign militaries and also improving two navies' capability for jointly responding to non-traditional security issues.

（Editor：YanMeng、Zhang Qian）