The two SH-60K aircraft from the Maritime Self-Defence Force were carrying four crew each and lost contact near Torishima island.
Two Japanese navy SH-60K helicopters crashed in the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo during a night-time training flight after possibly colliding with each other, the country’s defence minister said
The two SH-60K aircraft from the Maritime Self-Defence Force were carrying four crew each and lost contact near Torishima island, about 370 miles south of Tokyo, late on Saturday, Defence Minister Minoru Kihara told reporters. Rescuers have recovered a flight data recorder, a blade from each helicopter, and fragments believed to be from both aircraft in the same area, signs that the two SH-60Ks were flying close to each other, Mr Kihara said.Search and rescue efforts for the missing crew were expanded on Sunday, with the MSDF and Air Self-Defence Force together deploying 12 warships and seven aircraft. Japan Coast Guard patrol boats and aircraft also joined the operation.
Only one distress call was heard – another sign that the two helicopters were near the same place, because their signals use the same frequency and could not be differentiated, Mr Kihara said.The SH-60K helicopters, twin-engine, multi-mission aircraft developed by Sikorsky and known as Seahawks, were modified and produced in Japan by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
Japan, under its 2022 security strategy, has been accelerating its military build-up and fortifying deterrence in the south-western Japanese islands in the Pacific and East China Sea to counter threats from China’s increasingly assertive military activities. The crash comes a year after a Ground Self-Defence Force UH-60 Blackhawk crashed off the south-western Japanese island of Miyako, due to an engine output problem known as “rollback”, killing all 10 crew members, which shocked the nation.In 2017, a Japanese navy SH-60J, an earlier generation Seahawk, crashed during a night-time training flight off Aomori due to human error.
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