Wreckage confirmed to be from crashed Japanese F-35 fighter

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TOKYO (Reuters) - 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.

The pilot of the aircraft is still missing, said the Air Self Defense Force
(ASDF) spokesman.

"We recovered the wreckage and determined it was from the F-35," the spokesman
told Reuters.

The F-35 was less than a year old and was delivered to the ASDF in May last
year, he added.

Japan's first squadron of F-35s has just become operational at the Misawa air
base and the government plans to buy 87 of the stealth fighters to modernize its
air defenses as China's military power grows.

The advanced single-seat jet was flying about 135 km (84 miles) east of the air
base in Aomori Prefecture at about 7.27 p.m. (1027 GMT) on Tuesday, when it
disappeared from radar, the Air Self Defense Force said.

Lockheed Martin said in a statement that it was standing by to support the
Japanese Air Self Defense Force as needed.

The Pentagon said it was monitoring the situation.

The crash was 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 designed to penetrate enemy defenses by evading
radar detection.

A U.S. military short take off and landing (STOVL) F-35B crashed near the Marine
Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina in September prompting a temporary
grounding of the aircraft. Lockheed Martin also makes a C version of the fighter
designed to operate off carriers.

Japan's new F-35s will include 18 short take off and vertical landing (STOVL) B
variants that planners want to deploy on its islands along the edge of the East
China Sea.

The F-35s are shipped to Japan by Lockheed Martin and assembled by Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries Ltd at a plant near Nagoya in central Japan. Each costs around
$100 million, slightly more than the cost of buying a fully assembled plane.



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