Japanese F-35 fighter jet disappears from radar over Pacific
Kyodo News [Tokyo, Japan],
by
Staff
Original Article
Posted By: LittleHoodedMonk,
4/9/2019 11:20:16 AM
The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force said Tuesday an F-35A fighter jet deployed at Misawa Air Base in northeastern Japan disappeared from radar over the Pacific during a training exercise. The stealth fighter was flying with three other aircraft off the coast of Aomori Prefecture some 135 kilometers east of the base when radar contact was lost around 7:27 p.m., it said. Radio communication cannot be established with the missing single-crew fighter, and search operations are under way. The fighter is one of 13 F-35As deployed at Misawa. Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya told reporters the ASDF will ground the 12
"Stealth fighter disappears from radar"
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#1 Presumably it had its IFF transponder on.
Here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identification_friend_or_foe
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Reply 3 - Posted by:
DVC 4/9/2019 12:49:48 PM (No. 28325)
Hmm. The only way an F-35 would appear on a radar screen would be if it had it´s transponder on, which transmits radar signals to provide it´s location in peacetime for anticollision reasons.
Now, did it crash or did the pilot defect and fly it to China.
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Reply 4 - Posted by:
voxpopuli 4/9/2019 12:50:38 PM (No. 28313)
first i´ve heard of Misawa in a long time..
we lived there in 1952 during the Korean War..
nice to see we still have it..
7 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
tkingo6 4/9/2019 12:57:42 PM (No. 28327)
East of Misawa would be the Pacific Ocean, not the Sea of Japan.
9 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Rivetjoint 4/9/2019 1:03:06 PM (No. 28322)
Nevertheless, the SOJ and the Pacific waters are still mighty cold this time of year.
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Reply 7 - Posted by:
DVC 4/9/2019 3:29:47 PM (No. 28314)
Single engine aircraft over water is always a bad idea.
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Reply 8 - Posted by:
Gordon Mills 4/9/2019 3:31:15 PM (No. 28324)
Maybe the single-crew person turned off the responder and hightailed it to China.
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Reply 9 - Posted by:
DVC 4/9/2019 6:03:16 PM (No. 28315)
#9, always cloaked, the are stealthy, minimally return any radar that hits them, so unseen on normal radar systems.
They can appear on radar by turning on their radar transponder, which receives the signal from the radar site, then transmits a coded reply that the radar site will see, with the code attached to it.
Well, we have never left one up there, so it is down somewhere. Hope not in China. Hope the pilot is safe, but pretty unlikely in that cold water.
4 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Daisy Mae 4/9/2019 6:36:05 PM (No. 28318)
isn´t that what they were designed to do? Disappear?
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Reply 11 - Posted by:
Mike22 4/9/2019 8:43:51 PM (No. 28317)
Is it possible for someone on the ground to fly it remotely to the Soviet Union or China? Maybe the Obama administration had a Chinese national write the fly-by-wire software?
Were the destroyers that collided with cargo ships really under the control of the crew? Navigational hack?
3 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DVC 4/9/2019 9:06:51 PM (No. 28319)
#12, highly improbable except on Movie of the Week, where it is easy. Grin.
I would imagine that an exceptionally knowledgeable person, like one of the top experts on that aircraft´s control system design team at Lockheed, would have to design a special electronic device to receive external radio commands and then translate those into the exact control commands to "talk to" the flight control system.
With a knowledgeable enough person, and a lot of time alone to work on adding a device to the aircraft, I imagine it could be technically possible. Realistically, nearly impossible. These are very classified aircraft, and I am sure very secure, no access by uncleared people.
It would seem to be far easier to somehow corrupt a pilot and have him fly it to where you want.
Which is what I suggested as a (remote) possibility in my first post. But, I have to assume that these pilots are tightly screened, very unlikely to become a traitor. Occam´s Razor. Most likely something broke and it crashed in the ocean.
The race will be on to recover that aircraft from the bottom of the ocean before the Russians or the Chinese can get it. We WILL be putting a bunch of assets on that, and pronto.
7 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
watashiyo 4/10/2019 5:33:35 AM (No. 28326)
Pilot considered top elite, clocked 3200 hours on regular fighter jet, 60 hours with F-35A. Still missing, at 530p, 04/10/2019 Japan time. So what really did happen?
4 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
DVC 4/10/2019 11:13:41 PM (No. 28316)
#14, two most likely possibilities, the aircraft failed somehow or the pilot became disoriented/disabled and flew a good bird into the water.
GLOC is always a possibility, although I believe that the F-35 has a "GLOC save" system.
Ah, online check indicates that "GLOC-save", also known as ´CFIT-prevent´ was bring accelerated as a capability on F-35 in 2018. Not sure if all versions will have that capability at this time.
https://www.military.com/defensetech/2018/02/02/new-software-will-prevent-f-35-pilots-flying-ground.html
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As a former Phantom II Phixer, while this type of accident happens during training exercises, it still hurts. I hope that pilot will be found safely and plane later recovered. East would be in the Sea of Japan.