BEIJING: China’s first carrier-based stealth reconnaissance and strike drone, the GJ-21, recently completed its first takeoff and landing on the Sichuan, the country’s first Type 076 amphibious assault ship, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday. The trial underscores Beijing’s push to integrate drone technology into its military modernisation drive, a decades-long effort in which China has developed advanced warships, fighter jets, missiles and increasingly capable unmanned systems. Xinhua hailed the test as “a breakthrough in China’s amphibious assault ship programme” and said it signifies the navy’s ability to operate fixed-wing stealth drones from large naval platforms. GJ-21 first appeared at a military parade Beijing held last year to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, where it displayed different types of weapons. State tabloid the Global Times reported on Friday that GJ-21 has a substantial combat radius despite having a smaller airframe than the stealthy J-35 and J-20 fighters, citing military expert Zhang Xuefeng. “GJ-21 is also low cost and reusable. Unlike hypersonic missiles, it can be recovered and redeployed multiple times. It can also deploy small, low-cost glide-guided bombs. Under high-tempo operations, it offers greater fire delivery efficiency with better cost control,” Zhang was quoted as saying. The Sichuan, the lead vessel of China’s Type 076 amphibious assault ship class, was launched in December 2024 and features electromagnetic catapult and arresting technology. It can carry fixed-wing drones, helicopters and amphibious equipment. The vessel has a full-load displacement of more than 40,000 metric tons and features a full-length flight deck and twin-island superstructure. China’s state television CCTV said on Friday that the indigenously developed vessel conducted consecutive sea trials in late October. It did not disclose locations of the trials. China’s navy said in April that the Sichuan sailed to waters in the South China Sea for scientific testing and training missions. It said at the time the deployment was a routine test and did not aim at any specific target.

MADRID: Spain’s transport minister on Friday rejected calls for his resignation over the second train accident on his watch to cause mass casualties this year, as authorities worked to identify the victims from a crash that killed at least 69 people. Lawmakers from across the political spectrum this week condemned Transport Minister Oscar Puente for attributing Wednesday’s crash to a break in protocol by control centre operators rather than accepting responsibility, with rail workers’ unions calling for his immediate dismissal. The crash, which happened near the town of Urda in central Spain, followed another accident involving the same rail companies on the same line that killed 46 people in January. It has reopened a debate about safety and maintenance on Spain’s high-speed rail network, the most extensive in Europe, as the country prepares for an election that left-leaning Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called for November 29. “My duty now is not to focus on discussing whether I will remain in office, but on solving the problem, determining exactly what happened and providing clear explanations,” Puente said at a press conference on Friday. At the scene of the crash, large cranes were lifting the mangled wreckage as the Civil Guard listed 64 people as missing in what is already Spain’s deadliest train accident since 2013. It was unclear if all those missing were accounted for in the death toll. At least 68 people dead in Spain’s second major train crash this year Authorities have carried out 49 autopsies so far and formally identified five people, three women and two men, Esther Padilla, spokesperson for the Castilla-La Mancha regional government, said on state television network TVE. Authorities can’t rule out more fatalities No additional bodies were found when rescue teams overturned a train carriage on Thursday, Castilla-La Mancha regional leader Emiliano Garcia-Page said on TVE. Identifying the bodies was proving difficult because many were in pieces, he said. On Thursday, rescue teams had placed partial remains in 31 bags. “We cannot rule out the possibility of more fatalities,” Garcia-Page said. The collision occurred after several trains were automatically stopped due to the failure of a signalling system, after which the central control centre in Madrid took over. A train operated by state-owned Renfe was authorised to proceed, even though there was a stationary Iryo-operated train ahead, according to Puente. Audio of communications between the control centre and the train drivers obtained by El Pais showed how a controller authorised the Renfe train to continue on its journey at a normal speed, which Puente said disregarded a protocol to travel at no more than 40 kph in such circumstances. Controllers say focus should be on failed signal system The debate about who was at fault intensified, with unions saying it was unfair to lay the blame on human error. Raquel Ayllon, a union leader at state-owned infrastructure operator Adif, said controllers were having to operate under difficult working conditions. “Human error is being criticized and questioned very quickly, while people are not really focusing on the central issue: the failure of the safety system,” Ayllon said on TVE. Puente said the number of staff working at the control centre in Madrid had almost doubled since 2012 and that the controller who made the call had been working for two hours when the crash occurred. “I have never used the term ‘human error’, although that is not to say that there was no human error,” he said. He said the LZB train control system that failed on Wednesday had an average of 170 failures per year, which was about the same as the rest of Europe. The system was behind schedule for an upgrade, public documents show. The European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) has been installed across most of Spanish high-speed rail, according to a factsheet by European rail association UNIFE, which developed the new standard. Thales España, the Spanish arm of the French equipment maker, won a 2021 contract to install the ERTMS on the Madrid-Seville line, site of the two fatal crashes, by early 2026, but the work fell behind and passed to Hitachi Rail in 2024, according to Thales. Thales declined to comment on the delay of the rollout. Puente said the ERTMS system on the Madrid-Seville line was expected to begin working in early 2027, adding that the delay was due to the complexity of installing the system while keeping the line in operation.