Malaysia now exporter of jet engines (sort of)

Most of you guys should know by now, that a pair of jet engines for an F-5E fighter plane, plus numerous other 'items' were stolen from a Royal Malaysian Air Farce (<-- this is not a spelling error) base in 2007. The air force only found out that they were missing during an audit last year and we, the public were only told about it this week (Dec 2009).


Investigation is, of course, still on-going, after 2 years, because our world class Polis DiRaja Malaysia deemed this case "manyak besar wor".


In other countries, the culprits would have already been found and caught within a week, branded a traitor and then shot in face. However, in super efficient Malaysia, we give the bad guys 2 years' head start because we are that damn good!

RMAF's Northrop F-5E Tiger II

Anyway, a bit of history: The F-5E first flew in 1972 and Malaysia recieved them from the United States in 1975 to strengthen the country against the communist threat. However, these aircraft are now obsolete and has been relegated to training and reconaissance duties.

Have you seen this J85 jet engine? £10 reward.

The stolen J85 engines were meant to be replacements for the aircraft fleet. The air force chief was quoted saying that the defence capability of RMAF has not been affected by the loss of the two engines. Well, that's great but if we didn't need those engines as spares in the first place, why were they bought?

Ever since the news of the stolen engines surfaced on the internet, the RMAF ended up being laughing stock all over the world, even in the UK. Some still find it hard to believe that items as big as jet engines can get stolen from a military facility. You have to wonder what the rest of the missing 'items' are. Radar? Ejection seats? Missiles?

Could this be missing too? AIM-9 Sidewinder missile

The engines were reported to have been sold by the thief to an undisclosed South American country. Wow... Malaysia is now exporting jet engines! How thoughtful of the government in not naming the country in case we piss them off. Or is it because they don't even know where the engines are, so they just cook up a cock and bull story to pretend like they are in control of the issue.

Now some questions:

1. Did no one notice the engines being craned onto a lorry? It's not like the engine is a light item that 2 guys can simply lift up. Each engine is reported to weigh about 200kg.

2. Did the gate security guard not wonder "Err... where you think you going with those, dude?"


3. Rumor has it that the engines were stolen from Sg Besi AFB (air force base). What were the engines doing there in the first place? Sg Besi neither has the storage space nor the technicians to service the engines. And F-5Es are based at Butterworth AFB.


4. MOST IMPORTANTLY, and the question that no one has asked: RM50 million for a pair of J85 engines??? The unit price of an F-5E aircraft is only USD 2.1 million (RM 7 million). Why do a pair of these replacement engines costs as much as seven F-5Es???

If you bring your RM100k Toyota to the garage to have the engine swapped and the mechanic told you that the engine costs RM700k, would you still let him do it? Something must have gone very wrong somewhere during the purchase.



Before the government even investigates this theft, they should first find out why the Defense Ministry approved the purchase of severely overpriced replacement engines which the air force don't even need.


I suspect whoever bought the engines in the first place on behalf of RMAF either received a lot of kickbacks for it or is just plain stupid.

Another reason may be that more than a pair of engines were stolen. Or the stolen engines weren't J85s but rather F404s which the new RMAF F/A-18 Hornet uses (and more expensive).

A school of thought that has been floating around the blogosphere suggests that RMAF never recieved the engines in the first place. The air force simply claimed that 'new engines were missing' to handle the accounting irregularities after finding out that RM50 million went 'poof' in the Defence Ministry's bank account.

If you click on the link below, you can see there is a big market for J85 jet engines. You will also notice that none of them costs as much RM50 million. Hmm... maybe one of our missing engines is in the list...

http://www.speednews.com/EquipmentResults.aspx?Search=Engine&Engine=J85


If you have any more theories, don't be shy and please do post it in the comments section. No theory is too stupid as the Royal Malaysian Air Farce has proven to us that absolutely anything can happen in Malaysia. Malaysia is indeed Uniquely Asia!