The US and Japan are scrambling to find a missing F-35 before someone else does

Ryan Pickrell

Apr 10, 2019, 20:39 IST

The US and Japan are scrambling to find a missing F-35 before someone else does

Senior Airman Stormy Archer/US Air Force

US Air Force F-35As at Volk Field, August 22, 2016.

The US Navy has sent a P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft and a destroyer to search for a missing F-35A and its pilot.
The F-35A, from Japan's Air Self-Defense Force, disappeared from radar during a training flight Tuesday, and only parts of the aircraft have been recovered.
The search is focused on finding the pilot, but another aspect of the effort is protecting the advanced technology currently lost in international waters.
Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories

A frantic search is on for an F-35 that disappeared from radar and appears to have crashed somewhere off Japan.

A US Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem with the Navy's 7th Fleet are assisting the Japanese air and maritime assets dispatched to find the missing aircraft and its pilot, the Navy said in a statement Wednesday.

Japan has sent out U-125A search-and-rescue aircraft, UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, and P-3C maritime surveillance aircraft, as well as three coast-guard vessels to search for the downed F-35, according to The Diplomat.

"We continue to hope for the safe recovery of the pilot, and our thoughts are with his family and all of our Japanese partners as they conduct this search," United States Forces Japan said in a statement.

US Air Force/Tech. Sgt. Benjamin W. Stratton

Senior leaders from Japan's Ministry of Defense, US Forces Japan, Pacific Air Forces, and Lockheed Martin at a Japan Air Self-Defense Force welcome the first operational F-35A Lightning II at Misawa Air Base, Japan, February 24, 2018.

The F-35A was being flown by an experienced pilot with more than 3,200 flight hours, including 60 hours in the new stealth fighters. Radar contact with the aircraft was lost while it was about 85 miles east of Misawa Air Base in northern Japan. The Japan Air Self Defense Force has grounded its entire fleet of F-35s in response.

So far, only parts of the missing aircraft have been recovered. The discovery indicates that the plane crashed, likely marking the first F-35A crash. (A US Marine Corps F-35B crashed in South Carolina in September; the pilot was able to eject.)

While both the US and Japan are committed to finding the pilot, another aspect of the ongoing search is protecting the technology aboard the jet by finding the advanced aircraft before someone else does.

"There is no price too high in this world for China and Russia to pay to get Japan's missing F-35, if they can. Big deal," Tom Moore, a former senior professional staff member with the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted Tuesday.

Courtesy of the F-35 Joint Program Office

A Japanese Air Self-Defense Force F-35A.

"If one of Japan's F-35s is sitting at the bottom of the Pacific, we are probably about to see one of the biggest underwater espionage and counter-espionage ops since the Cold War," Tyler Rogoway, editor of respected defense publication The War Zone, tweeted.

A Pentagon spokesman told Business Insider that the "US stands ready to support the partner nation in recovery" in the event that a F-35 goes missing.

While refusing to into details about what steps the US is taking to protect its technology, the spokesman pointed to the current situation with Turkey as evidence of the lengths the US will go to in order to ensure its technology does not fall into the wrong hands.

The fifth-generation F-35 developed by Lockheed Martin is the most expensive weapon in US history and is the result of more than two decades of research and development.

The stealth fighter was specifically built to give the US advantages in high-end conflict against great-power rivals. Neither Russia nor China has been able to field a comparable fifth-generation aircraft.