According to Taiwan's United Daily News, six officers and soldiers fell into the sea when the Hai Hu submarine went to sea for training on December 21 last year, and three are still missing to date. The Taiwan Navy Command has completed an investigation into the incident, saying that the case was caused by a combination of environmental and equipment factors, not human error, and that under the regulations no one is to be punished. A "legislator" said on the 18th that the investigation result is very unfair to the families of the missing officers and soldiers.

At the end of last year, during a training exercise at sea, the Hai Hu submarine's rescue buoy opened and floated to the surface for unknown reasons. The captain ordered personnel onto the deck to recover the rescue buoy. At that time, waves were pounding the hull, and although the officers and soldiers had their safety lines secured, they still fell into the sea, and three went missing.

The Taiwan Navy Command said on the 18th that the recovery of the Hai Hu submarine's rescue buoy was carried out in accordance with maintenance circulars, and that this case, after investigation, was caused by a combination of environmental and equipment factors, not human error, and that under the provisions of the "Administrative Procedure Act" and the "Armed Forces Punishment Act," no punishment would be imposed.

In response, Kuomintang "legislator" Hsu Chiao-hsin pointed out that there must have been problems with the standard decision-making procedures in the Hai Hu submarine personnel-overboard case, and that after the problems arose, the review was done hastily and perfunctorily, no one was punished, and the review process was not explained to the public.

Hsu Chiao-hsin said that only after the Hai Hu submarine personnel-overboard accident occurred did the navy urgently procure man-overboard warning devices. The military's remedial action afterward was simply to buy more equipment, but what society is most concerned about is whether there were errors in the decision-making and judgment at the time of the incident and whether the standard procedures for personnel deployment need improvement; the military, however, has not let society see any review in this regard.

Hsu Chiao-hsin pointed out that the navy's claim that this case did not involve human error was simply an attempt to minimize the matter and make it go away, and it is very unfair to the families of the missing officers and soldiers. She believes this has become a bad habit in the military: when someone in the military does something wrong, the military gives no explanation, and this will be a focus of her oversight in the future.

In addition, "legislator" Ma Wen-chun questioned, "What do you mean by a combination of environmental and equipment factors?" Was the environment so severe that it exceeded the operating limits of the equipment? Or was the environment within operating regulations, but the equipment purchased was of inferior quality? This is simply "wordplay."

She said that when conventional naval vessels carry out missions at sea, if conditions are poor due to wind and waves, surface ships will require personnel to walk in the internal corridors of the ship. Likewise, during the surfaced phase of a submarine at sea, when wind and waves are poor, whether personnel are allowed to work outside the vessel is something the captain should be professionally competent to judge; if a hazardous incident occurs because of this, the operating procedures and the captain's responsibility should indeed be reviewed.

She said that when a captain commands a vessel to go to sea on a mission, he bears responsibility for the entire vessel; how could he be completely blameless when an accident occurs? The safety lines of three officers and soldiers came loose and they went missing; this is no longer a safety-line problem, but rather that the maritime weather made it fundamentally impossible to carry out a mission on the deck. The accidental surfacing of the buoy was a minor matter and was not worth risking officers and soldiers' lives for.