As families prepared for Lunar New Year travel on 16 February 2026, the sound of an alarm turned celebration into duty for aircrews stationed along the South China Sea. Pilot Yuan Zhenru and his unit described a familiar ritual: instant readiness, rapid launch and the silent discipline that comes with hours on alert. Two J‑16s were dispatched to intercept an unidentified airborne contact, completed their mission in just over an hour and returned to base under a night sky brightened by bird‑scaring flares.
The account sketches how modern air policing operates as a system rather than the act of a single pilot. Ground crews pre‑fuel aircraft, prepare munitions and ensure that command, control and communications nodes are live so that a scramble can turn into an effective identification and response mission without delay. Military commentator Wei Dongxu is cited explaining that alarms are treated as orders—sometimes equivalent to combat information—and that frontline vigilance is constant.
The immediate object of these scrambles is not detailed in the dispatch, which instead emphasises the range of possible airspace intruders: unidentifiable flying objects, surveillance platforms or deliberate provocations. That ambiguity is by design in the account; it highlights both the operational challenge of distinguishing hostile intent and the political utility of publicising readiness. Scenes of flares arcing above the runway — likened to fireworks — perform a dual role as both a factual record and a morale image for domestic audiences.
For international readers, this vignette is a reminder that the South China Sea remains an arena of continual air and maritime interaction. Regular interceptor launches are part of routine contestation over approaches to Chinese territory, and their public portrayal serves as signalling to foreign militaries conducting surveillance or transits in the region. At the same time, normalising scrambles during a major holiday underlines Beijing’s message that its forces remain on continuous watch.
The account also points to practical risks. Rapid identification under time pressure increases the chance of miscalculation, especially when multiple states, private actors and unmanned systems share crowded airspace. That raises the stakes for communication and de‑confliction mechanisms between regional militaries and civil aviation authorities, even as each side seeks to demonstrate deterrence and readiness.