OREANDA-NEWS. Chinese Ministry of National Defense reported that the People’s Liberation Army Navy got the second aircraft carrier, which became the first ship of this class produced in China.

The ceremony of transferring the aircraft carrier to the fleet took place at the naval base in the city of Sanya on Hainan Island in the presence of the leader of China, the chairman of the Central Military Commission, Xi Jinping. The ceremony began at about 4:00 p. m. local time. About five thousand representatives of the Navy and those who took part in the construction of the ship lined up on the pier near the aircraft carrier.

After the ceremony, Xi Jinping went around the ship, got acquainted with the living and service conditions of pilots, talked with the personnel and left a note in the logbook.

Zhang Yuxia, the deputy chairman of the Central Military Commission of China, solemnly announced that the aircraft carrier had been got by the naval forces and was given the name “Shandong.”

The second Chinese aircraft carrier was launched in April 2017. It was built since 2013. The length of the warship is 315 meters, width 75 meters, weight 70 thousand tons, cruising speed 31 knots. Chinese media reported that 36 Shenyang J-15 fighters could be based on board. The first test flight of the aircraft carrier took place in May 2019.

The first Chinese aircraft carrier “Liaoning” was built on the basis of the unfinished Soviet cruiser Varyag, purchased from Ukraine in 1998. Work on its transformation into an aircraft-carrying cruiser began at a shipyard in Chinese Dalian in 2005. The first sea tests of “Liaoning” were carried out in 2011. It joined the Chinese Navy in September 2012.