Search continues for 7 crew after 2 SDF choppers crash in Pacific

    TOKYO, April 22 Kyodo - The search continued on Monday for seven Maritime Self-Defense Force members who are missing after two helicopters crashed during a late-night anti-submarine drill in the Pacific on Saturday.

    The two SH-60K patrol helicopters, which the Defense Ministry believes likely collided, were carrying four people each, with one confirmed to have died. The Defense Ministry plans to analyze two flight recorders that have been recovered from an area where the search is taking place.

    The helicopters lost contact at 10:38 p.m. and 11:04 p.m. on Saturday, respectively, with the MSDF receiving an emergency signal at 10:39 p.m.

    Together with another MSDF helicopter, the two crashed aircraft were conducting a drill to detect and attack a submarine, after taking off from separate destroyers deployed nearby.

    The crash site is in waters around 270 kilometers east of Torishima Island in the Izu Island chain, where the water depth is about 5,500 meters.

    Rotor blades and other helicopter parts have been spotted on the surface as well as helmets.

    The accident is a blow to the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, which in April 2023 saw a UH-60JA helicopter of the ground force crash into waters off an island in the southern prefecture of Okinawa, resulting in the deaths of all 10 people aboard.

    In January 2022, an Air Self-Defense Force F-15 fighter jet crashed into the Sea of Japan off Ishikawa Prefecture in the central part of the country, killing two pilots.

==Kyodo