One week after an F-35A stealth jet crashed off the northeastern coast of Japan, US and Japanese military vessels are struggling to find the wreckage and protect its valuable “secrets.”
The Japanese jet on Tuesday last week vanished from radar over the Pacific as it was conducting a training mission with three other aircraft about 135km east of Misawa.
The remains of the jet’s tail had been found, but they the search has gone on in vain for the rest of the fuselage, as well as the pilot, a Japanese Ministry of Defense spokesman told reporters.
“On average, two aircraft, including a helicopter, and two patrol vessels are constantly deployed in the around-the-clock search operations,” said the official, who asked to remain anonymous.
The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force has deployed an uncrewed submersible vessel.
Separately, the US military has dispatched one military aircraft and one vessel to join the mission, the official said, adding that the search has not yet been scaled back.
Japanese Minister of Defense Takeshi Iwaya said that the crash would be discussed at a meeting with his US counterpart in Washington on Friday, which is also to involve the two allies’ foreign ministers.
“The F-35A is an airplane that contains a significant amount of secrets that need to be protected,” Iwaya told reporters.
“With the help of the United States, we will continue to take the leading role in investigating the cause of the accident,” he said.
Akira Kato a professor of international politics and regional security at J.F. Oberlin University in Tokyo said that China and Russia would have “a strong interest in collecting even a single screw of the state-of-the-art plane.”
It would not be a surprise if Moscow and Beijing were engaged in undercover activities to find some of the debris, said Hideshi Takesada, a defense expert and professor at Takushoku University in Tokyo.
“Even if Japan and the US find it, they may not disclose details, including its exact location, due to concerns that China and Russia might try to collect it,” Takesada told reporters.
The ministry confirmed that it had not spotted any suspicious vessels or aircraft from a third country near the site.
The Japan Air Self-Defense Force last week announced a commission to study the cause of the accident, but it remains unclear exactly what happened to the airplane.
US defense contractor Lockheed Martin has touted the high-tech fighter as “virtually undetectable” and has said that it allows the US and its allies to dominate the skies with its “unmatched capability and unprecedented situational awareness.”
Japan is deploying F-35As, each of which costs more than ¥10 billion (US$89.3 million), to replace its aging F-4 fighters.
The crashed jet was one of 13 F-35As deployed at Misawa Air Base, the ministry said, adding that the remaining 12 fighters have been grounded for the time being.
The F-35A is a key part of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to upgrade the nation’s military capacity to meet changing power dynamics in East Asia, with China rapidly modernizing its military.
Over the next decade, Japan plans to purchase as many as 105 F-35As and 42 units of other high-capability jets, most likely the F-35B variant.
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