RMAF To Establish Bare Base At Bintulu

01 Oktober 2021

Bintulu, Sarawak (image : GoogleMaps)

The Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) will be establishing a bare base at Bintulu Airport in order to support its operations over the Luconia Shoals just 80 nautical miles off Bintulu, Sarawak. The establishment of the base will be funded under the 12th Malaysia Plan (RMK-12).

Bintulu Airport currently has all the required airside facilities and runway to accommodate large aircraft up to the size of a Boeing 747 Jumbo jet. It currently handles Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 operated by Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia.

To date, the RMAF has establish similar capabilities out of Tawau Airport which has demonstrated its capabilities to handle high performance combat aircraft such as the BAe hawk Mk 108/208 Fighter Ground Attack (FGA) aircraft operated by No 6/9 Skn out of Labuan AFB.

The RMAF has also established an air defence radar site at undisclosed location near Bintulu. The Bintulu bare Base will enable the Air Force to forward deployed its Hawk fighters or the upcoming Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) as well as transport aircraft and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV).

So far, the Malaysian Coast Guard (officially known as the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency or MMEA) has been known of using Bintulu Airport as Forward Operation Base (FOB) for its Bombardier CL-415MP amphibian during the 2014 intrusion of People’s Armed Force Maritime Militia off the Malaysian controlled Beting Patinggi Ali and Beting Raja Jarom (Luconia Shoals)

The establishment of Bintulu Bare Base is driven by several factors. These include the recent intrusion over Luconia Shoals by 16 Xian Y-20 Kunpeng and Ilyushin Il-76 (NATO Reporting Name: Candid) strategic transport aircraft on May 31. During the incident, RMAF hawks were deployed out of Labuan AFB to shadow the aircraft before they leave Malaysian airspace.

Since 2014 till recently, Luconia Shoals have seen countless of sustained intrusion by the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) and the maritime militia. The Malaysian Government has established a border marker on the sand shoals since they are well within the Malaysian territories. The presence of foreign intruders have affected economic activities in the area especially oil and gas as well as fisheries activities.

The Malaysian Government has a plan to mobilised sea base in the area. It has already planned to establish Naval Region Command 4 (Markas Wilayah laut 4 -MAWILLA 4) which has its current nucleus placement at Bintulu Port.

(MFH)