Japan military jet with six aboard missing

Japan's Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera (C) reviews troops from the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force 1st Airborne Brigade during an annual new year military exercise at Narashino exercise field in Funabashi, east of Tokyo January 12, 2014. Some 300 soldiers including Japan's elite paratroops and 20 aircraft conducted an island defense display based on a scenario of counter the military threat of invasion on Japanese territory islands by a hostile country. REUTERS/Issei Kato
Japan’s Former Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera reviews troops from the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force 1st Airborne Brigade during an annual  military exercise at Narashino exercise field in Funabashi, east of Tokyo in 2014. (Reuters/Issei Kato)

 

Tokyo, Japan (AFP)—-A Japanese air force plane with six people aboard went missing on Wednesday, the defense ministry announced, and a search was under way in mountainous terrain.

The U-125 aircraft left a base in Kagoshima prefecture on Kyushu island in southwestern Japan in the early afternoon, said Yoshiyuki Sugiyama, head of the Air Self-Defense Force.

The small jet “disappeared from the radar,”  Sugiyama told a press briefing.

Public broadcaster NHK showed footage of helicopters searching  forest-covered mountains for the aircraft, while military and emergency vehicles rushed toward the area.