Japanese F-35 fighter crashes into the Pacific, wreckage confirmed

Search and rescue teams found wreckage belonging to a Japanese Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter that disappeared on Tuesday over the Pacific Ocean close to northern Japan, a military spokesman said on Wednesday.

"We recovered the wreckage and determined it was from the F-35," a spokesman for the Air Self Defense Force (ASDF) said, adding that the pilot of the aircraft was still missing.

The single-engine jet from Japan's Air Self-Defense Force was on a training flight with three other F-35s which were flying about 135 km east of the Misawa air base in Aomori Prefecture at about 7:27 p.m. (1027 GMT) on Tuesday, when it disappeared from radar, Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said.

The aircraft was less than a year old and was delivered to the ASDF in May last year, the spokesman said. Japan's first squadron of F-35s has just become operational at Misawa and the government plans to buy 87 of the stealth fighters to modernize its air defenses.

The crash marks only the second time an F-35 has gone down since the plane began flying almost two decades ago. It was also the first crash of an A version of the fifth-generation fighter, which is designed to penetrate enemy defenses by evading radar detection.

The F-35 comes in three versions. The F-35A, like the one Japan lost contact with Tuesday, is the one designed for air forces to use off conventional runways. The F-35B, like the one the U.S. Marine Corps lost, is designed for short takeoff and vertical landings. The F-35C model is the U.S. Navy's version, designed for use off its aircraft carriers.

At present, some of the Japanese F-35 are assembled in the United States and others at a plant in Nagoya, Japan. The plane that crashed Tuesday was the first one assembled in Nagoya, the Ministry of Defense said.

Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the aircraft, said it was standing by to support the Japanese ASDF as needed. The Pentagon said it was monitoring the situation.

(Cover image: Defense Minister of Japan, Takeshi Iwaya, at the press briefing, Tokyo, April 10, 2019 /VCG Photo)

(REUTERS)