TOKYO: Japan grounded most of its aging military training aircraft on Wednesday after one of the planes crashed minutes after take off.
Two crew are missing after the T-4 training aircraft operated by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force crashed after taking off from Komaki Air Base, in the central Japanese prefecture of Aichi, officials said.
The force said the plane was lost from radar two minutes after departure. The authorities are searching for the missing aircraft and its crew in an area near a reservoir known as the Iruka pond, officials said. The reservoir, in the city of Inuyama, is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) northeast of the air base.
The military has grounded temporarily nearly 200 T-4s until the cause of the accident is identified and safety checks and training are carried out, Hiroaki Uchikura, the air force chief of staff, told a news conference late Wednesday.
The crashed plane was a 36-year-old T-4 operated out of Nyutabaru Air Base, in the southern prefecture of Miyazaki. It was not fitted with a voice recorder or a flight data recorder.
Defense Minister Gen Nakatani earlier Wednesday told reporters that parts of the aircraft have been found at the crash site. Officials were also preparing to collect fuel apparently leaked from the aircraft and floating in the reservoir, Nakatani said.
Lifesaving equipment and helmets of the crew were also found, Uchikura said.
Witnesses told the NHK national broadcaster that they heard a loud noise like thunder, followed by sirens of police cars and fire engines.
The T-4 was returning to Nyutabaru air base after its crew had earlier helped deliver a F-15 fighter jet to Komaki Air Base for scheduled maintenance, Uchikura said.
A captain with more than 1,000 hours of flight experience had piloted the F-15, while a first lieutenant piloted the T-4. Both were in the T-4 on their way back to Komaki when the incident happened.
The crash is the latest in a series of defense aircraft accidents in recent years.
In April 2024, two SH-60K navy reconnaissance helicopters crashed during nighttime anti-submarine training near Torishima island, about 600 kilometers south of Tokyo, leaving all eight crewmembers dead.
In 2023, an army UH-60JA Black Hawk helicopter on a reconnaissance mission crashed off a southern island of Miyako, with the loss of 10 crew.
Japan grounds military training aircraft after crash leaves 2 crew members missing
https://arab.news/g9pun
Japan grounds military training aircraft after crash leaves 2 crew members missing
- The crashed plane was a 36-year-old T-4 operated out of Nyutabaru Air Base
- It was not fitted with a voice recorder or a flight data recorder
Hungary says it will block a key EU loan to Ukraine until Russian oil shipments resume
- Szijjártó said: “As long as Ukraine blocks the resumption of oil supplies to Hungary, Hungary will block European Union decisions that are important and favorable for Ukraine”
- Hungary’s decision to block the key funding came two days after it suspended diesel shipments
BUDAPEST: Hungary will block a planned 90-billion-euro ($106-billion) European Union loan to Ukraine until the flow of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline resumes, Hungary’s foreign minister said.
Russian oil shipments to Hungary and Slovakia have been interrupted since Jan. 27 after what Ukrainian officials said was a Russian drone attack damaged the Druzhba pipeline, which carries Russian crude across Ukrainian territory and into Central Europe.
Hungary and Slovakia, which have both received a temporary exemption from an EU policy prohibiting imports of Russian oil, have accused Ukraine — without providing evidence — of deliberately holding up supplies. Both countries ceased shipping diesel to Ukraine this week over the interruption in oil flows .
In a video posted on social media Friday evening, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó accused Ukraine of “blackmailing” Hungary by failing to restart shipments. He said his government would block a massive interest-free loan the EU approved in December to help Kyiv to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years.
“We will not give in to this blackmail. We do not support Ukraine’s war, we will not pay for it,” Szijjártó said. “As long as Ukraine blocks the resumption of oil supplies to Hungary, Hungary will block European Union decisions that are important and favorable for Ukraine.”
Hungary’s decision to block the key funding came two days after it suspended diesel shipments to its embattled neighbor and only days before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Nearly every country in Europe has significantly reduced or entirely ceased Russian energy imports since Moscow launched its war in Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Yet Hungary and Slovakia — both EU and NATO members — have maintained and even increased supplies of Russian oil and gas.
Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has long argued Russian fossil fuels are indispensable for its economy and that switching to energy sourced from elsewhere would cause an immediate economic collapse — an argument some experts dispute.
Widely seen as the Kremlin’s biggest advocate in the EU, Orbán has vigorously opposed the bloc’s efforts to sanction Moscow over its invasion, and blasted attempts to hit Russia’s energy revenues that help finance the war. His government has frequently threatened to veto EU efforts to assist Ukraine.
On Saturday, Slovakia’s populist Prime minister Robert Fico said his country will stop providing emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine if oil is not flowing through the Druzhba by Monday. Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, said earlier this week that Hungary, too, was exploring the possibility of cutting off its electricity supplies to Ukraine.
Not all of the EU’s 27 countries agreed to take part in the 90-billion-euro loan package for Kyiv. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic opposed the plan, but a deal was reached in which they did not block the loan and were promised protection from any financial fallout.
