Engineer to be reprimanded over social media posts: AIDC

Taipei, Sept. 27 (CNA) Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. (AIDC) on Friday said it will reprimand one of its engineers for posting photos of his work on Taiwan's indigenous jet trainer on social media in contravention of company rules.

The AIDC issued a statement after local media outlet China Times reported Thursday that an AIDC engineer had on numerous occasions shared sensitive information about Taiwan's Advanced Trainer Jet (ADJ) program and its advanced jet trainers, also known as the Brave Eagle, via his personal Instagram account.

After an initial investigation, AIDC confirmed the individual was indeed a member of its engineering team.

According to the Taichung-based aerospace firm, the Air Force recently reported problems with excessive noise and tremors in the cockpit of one of its Brave Eagles, which was later returned to the company for inspection.

The engineer, who was responsible for analyzing the aircraft's environmental control and thermal systems, was apparently disgruntled with frequent overtime due to his work on the plane, AIDC said.

The photos posted by the individual on Instagram contained some information about the plane's computational fluid dynamics data, while others were mostly unrelated to his work, the company said.

Meanwhile, it said without elaborating that the information revealed about the ADJ program was inaccurate.

Even though the engineer did not reveal any confidential information, his behavior amounted to a grave violation of work discipline, and he will therefore be reprimanded for damaging the company's image and reputation, AIDC said.