A missing Japanese F-15 frontline fighter is believed to have crashed and its two crew members remain unaccounted for, Japan said on Tuesday.
The Japan Air Self-Defence Force jet disappeared from air traffic control radars on Monday shortly after take-off, around 5 kilometres from Komatsu airbase on the Sea of Japan coast, which has two tactical fighter squadrons, according to the defence ministry.
Speaking to reporters, Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi dismissed an early media report that one of the pilots had been found.
Search and rescue helicopters and three coast guard ships continued their search after earlier finding aircraft debris in the sea, the Japan Coast Guard said in a press release.
Most of the Boeing Co F-15 jets flown by Japan were built under licence by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and have been Japan's mainstay frontline fighter for four decades, regularly scrambling to respond to Chinese and Russian aircraft probing the country's airspace.
Japan has around 200 F-15s, half of which will be upgraded by Boeing to extend their operating life and improve capability.
Israel's military is poised to evacuate Palestinian civilians from Rafah and assault Hamas hold-outs in the southern Gaza Strip city, a senior Israeli defence official said, despite international warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Marine wildlife experts were frantically trying to rescue some 140 pilot whales stranded on Thursday in the shallow waters of an estuary in the southwest of the state of Western Australia.
A grand jury has charged 18 people with allegedly participating in an Arizona fake elector scheme to re-elect then-US President Donald Trump in 2020, the state's attorney general said on Wednesday.
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Israel is poised to send troops into Rafah, the Gazan city it sees as the last bastion of Hamas, Israeli media reported on Wednesday, saying preparations were under way to evacuate war-displaced Palestinian civilians who have been sheltering there.