2 missing crew members from Japan's downed ASDF jet found with no signs of life

Japan's Defense Ministry said on Friday that the two crew members unaccounted for following an Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF) plane crashing on Wednesday on a mountain in the southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima have been found.

Along with saying that it had found debris from the U-125 jet scattered across a wide area in a ravine on Mt. Takakuma, the ministry confirmed that the two crew members found showed no signs of life.

The aircraft disappeared from radar on Wednesday around 10 km north of an airbase in the prefecture. Four of the crew members were subsequently found near the crash site on Thursday and also showed no signs of life.

The ministry concluded Friday the aircraft, used to check the condition of aircraft navigation facilities, had crashed, although the final communications between the plane and the Kanoya base's air traffic controller were not unusual.

The pilot, a major in the air force, was in his 40s and had logged more than 6,000 flying hours, the defense ministry said.

Following a massive search and rescue operation comprising more than 600 SDF personnel, along with police and firefighters, launched following the plane's disappearance and eyewitness reports of smoke rising in the mountainous region of the crash site, 20 ASDF investigators are currently at the scene to determine the cause of the crash.

Japan's public broadcaster NHK showed video footage taken from a helicopter Friday morning revealing wreckage from the plane scattered across a wide area in a ravine in a forested area at the peak of Mt. Takakuma.

A small piece of the fuselage was recognizable, as were some of the plane's distinctive red and white markings on some pieces of the wreckage.

Trees in the vicinity of the downed planed had clearly been scored by fire, the video also showed.

Last year, a Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) helicopter departing from the Kanoya base crashed on a mountain in Miyazaki Prefecture, next to Kagoshima, killing all three of its occupants.

Source: XINHUA