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The JASDF said Wednesday it has found what could be debris from the missing fighter jet, according to broadcaster NHK.
The incident took place during a training flight involving four F-35A fighters. One pilot was on board of the missing aircraft. The missing jet was reportedly the first F-35A assembled at
the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries facility in Nagoya.
READ MORE: Polish Defence Minister Hopes to Speed Up Talks on Purchasing US F-35 Jets
Japanese Defence Minister Takeshi Iwaya announced Tuesday that Tokyo would ground the JASDF's whole fleet of F-35A stealth fighters in the wake of the incident.
In December, Japan announced its plans to buy an additional 105 F-35 aircraft to supplement its originally planned force of 42 F-35 jets, with the additional order's cost estimated to exceed
1 trillion yen (nearly $8.9 billion). The anticipated purchase makes Japan the largest international buyer of F-35 aircraft.
Turkey to Benefit if it Buys Russian Jets Instead of F-35 - Political Strategist3 April 2019, 15:06 GMTLast August, the nonprofit Project On Government Oversight (POGO) said that senior
officials developing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for the US armed forces — the most expensive military program of all time — are covering up dangerous flaws in the plane instead of fixing
them. In particular, the Center for Defense Information at POGO obtained a document showing how F-35 officials were re-categorizing rather than fixing major design flaws to be able to claim
they had completed the program’s development phase without having to pay overruns for badly needed fixes.
Moreover, a report on the F-35 last year from the US Government Accountability Office showed that the aircraft still had 111 Category One deficiencies that may cause death, severe injury,
loss or major damage and that critically restricted the combat readiness capabilities of armed forces using the aircraft, POGO noted.
READ MORE: 'F-35 is Not Ready to Fly', US Defence Companies 'Buy Politicians' – Journalist
