Japan's Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said the U.S. joined search-and-rescue efforts to find the remaining seven missing MSDF crew members. File photo by Keizo Mori/UPI |
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April 23 (UPI) -- Japan's Defense Minister Minoru Kihara on Tuesday said the United States will join search-and-rescue efforts for the seven missing Maritime Self-Defense Force members after two helicopters went down in the Pacific on Saturday.
The defense minister told reporters that the U.S. Navy is set to dispatch a P-8 patrol aircraft and an MSDF oceanographic ship styled as Shonan -- based out of Yokosuka -- in the effort to locate potential debris on the ocean floor near the crash site which can get up to 8,044 feet deep.
Kihara added that the location where communication got disrupted before the crash had been identified.
"Since the latitude and longitude are known, search and rescue operations are being conducted by Self-Defense Force vessels and aircraft and the Japan Coast Guard with a focus on that area," he said.
Kihara also said there are approximately 10 MSDF ships and five aircraft already engaged in the search efforts in addition.
The search area is nearly 373 miles south of the country's capital in Tokyo near the Izu island chain off the southeast part of Japan but will grow as time passes due to ocean currents.
The two Maritime Self-Defense Force SH-60 helicopters -- carrying four people each -- and their combined eight crew were conducting an anti-submarine warfare training exercise over the Pacific Ocean about 150 nautical miles east of the uninhibited Japanese island of Torishima when they lost communication at about 10:38 p.m. local time Saturday.
Flight recorders of the two aircraft were located in close proximity to each other, officials said.
No issues were detected with the helicopters just prior to the crash, but it was determined that the two MSDF aircraft had not been connected to an information-sharing system which would have alerted them to their close proximities while in the air.
The other missing crew members are the helicopter captains, Takuya Matsuda and Kazuki Itamura and others, MSDF officers Takafumi Fukudome, Musashi Kai, Natsuki Yamashita, Makoto Hirota and Yusaku Dozono.
Search-and-rescue operations were launched, and one crew member -- MSDF officer Yuki Nishihata -- died after he had been recovered. The crew member's body has since been transferred to Yokosuka Hospital where it will be autopsied.
On Saturday, Kihara explained that a dozen ships and seven aircraft from the Maritime Self-Defense Force, along with two vessels and one aircraft from the Japan Coast Guard, had been deployed to the crash site in search of the missing Japanese crew members.
The incident comes a little more than a year after a Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force UH-60JA multipurpose helicopter crashed off the coast of Miyako Island, killing all 10 crew members.
