Japan searches for two missing crew members after training jet crash
May 15 (UPI) -- The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force agency continued its search Thursday for two crew members and their plane that crashed Wednesday somewhere in the country's Aichi Prefecture.
The T-4 training aircraft involved had reportedly only been airborne for two minutes after it departed Komaki Air Base for Nyutabaru Air Base in Japan's Miyazaki Prefecture when it disappeared from radar, as per Air Self-Defense Force officials, who also say that no emergency signals of any kind had been detected before the jet crashed.
Witnesses purportedly saw sparks coming from a jet near the crash site, and heard a loud boom when it crashed.
A search of a reservoir in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture has turned up parts of the missing T-4 as well as a part of a helmet, but so far there haven't been any signs of the pilots, identified as Capt. Takuji Ioka and First Lt. Shota Amitani.
The aircraft, constructed in 1989, was not equipped with either a voice or a flight data recorder, which the Japanese Defense Ministry said could complicate its investigation of the situation.
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