[FlameOn]

Japan crashes F-35 into the Pacific ocean and . Russia and China also apparently hunting for the wreakage.

A Japanese F-35 fighter crashed into the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, raising questions about reliability and security of the most expensive weapons system ever made.

The stealth jet disappeared from radar minutes into a training mission from Misawa Air Base in northern Japan. Defense officials said its pilot signaled the need to abort the mission shortly before the plane was lost.

Japanese Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said debris from the plane, parts of its two tail fins, was found early Wednesday. Iwaya said Japan's remaining dozen F-35s would be grounded until the cause of Tuesday's crash is determined.

But early reports suggest system failure and that's troubling because it mean something might have been missed in the production process, said Carl Schuster, a former US Navy officer and professor at Hawaii Pacific University.

While most F-35s are made in the United States, the one that crashed Tuesday was the first to come off an assembly line in Nagoya, Japan, the Ministry of Defense said.

The jet's sophistication means the US and Japan would likely be acting quickly to recover any wreckage from the bottom of the Pacific before adversaries could get a look at it, Schuster said.

Even getting a look at the wreckage via a close up underwater camera could provide China or another adversary like Russia valuable intelligence, Schuster said.

"They'll be worried about it," Schuster said of the US and Japanese militaries. "China does have deep-sea recovery submarines."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/09/asia/...ntl/index.html