It's early April 2019 and a flight of four
Japanese Self-Defense Forces F-35s take off for a routine training flight. At the lead is an experienced pilot with 3,200
hours of total flight time and 60 hours with the cutting-edge fighter. After a brief flight though, the lead officer
signals an abort to the training exercise and then mysteriously vanishes from radar. But how in the world does an F-35, the most
advanced plane in the world, go missing? The weather that day had been perfect for
flying, warm and sunny with few clouds in the sky. As a close ally of the United States, Japan
has been a partner in the F-35 program and one of the few nations cleared for sale of
the state-of-the-art fighter jet. In anticipation of a purchase of almost two
hundred aircraft, Japanese pilots had begun flying F-35s shipped over from the United
States in order to familiarize themselves with the machine and its technology. What was just another routine training flight
however ended in tragedy and mystery when the flight's lead suddenly disappeared. After only twenty eight minutes in the air,
the flight's lead sent out a single signal to the rest of his pilots, ordering an abort
to the exercise. Shortly after the F-35 simply disappeared
from radar, its identification beacon was either turned off or began malfunctioning. With the beacon not operational, the F-35's
stealth features would've made it difficult to track, and the last thing radar operators
knew was that the plane was headed down and looked to be in serious trouble. While hard data is all but impossible to ascertain
given the extreme secrecy behind the aircraft, investigators were hoping to find clues as
to what happened from the classified communications and data sharing system on board the jet. What is known is that the pilot did not signal
for help, and it's believed that he did not eject- or if he did, he never activated a
rescue beacon, which only adds even more mystery to the entire event. The aircraft crashed just north of the main
Japanese island, in waters almost 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) deep, which would make recovery
of its components very difficult. An initial search for the craft involved the
Japanese navy, though they worked in close cooperation with the US military to include
secretive US high altitude reconnaissance planes. Working in conjunction, the search effort
discovered pieces of the plane's left and right rudders two hours after it went down,
but further wreckage would take weeks to locate. The US chartered a civilian deep sea diving
support vessel, the Van Gogh, and dispatched a remotely operated vehicle to aid in the
undersea search. With a maximum depth of 20,000 feet (9,000
meters) there's few places in the ocean the ROV can't go. The Japanese quickly dispatched the Kaimei,
a deep sea scientific survey ship along with their own ROVs. The immediate concern was that China or Russia
would be able to locate the wreckage first, and plunder the secrets of the high-tech aircraft. The US was adamant however that there was
no chance that either nation would be able to find the jet first, and given its stealth
characteristics and the proximity to US and Japanese forces when it went down, it does
seem likely that neither China or Russia would have had the time to find the jet before American
and Japanese assets reached the area. However fears of plundering military secrets
from wreckage at the bottom of the sea are not completely unfounded, as the US Navy famously
lifted up half of a destroyed Soviet nuclear sub during the Cold War, keeping the entire
operation a secret and recovering several manuals and two nuclear torpedoes- all without
Soviet knowledge. If that were to happen here, it could catapult
both the Russian and Chinese 5th generation fighter programs by reverse engineering American
technology. While both nations are developing stealth
fighters, it is widely believed that neither the Chinese or Russian planes will ultimately
be as capable as the F-35, although both will be an impressive effort for nations with very
little experience building stealth aircraft. Given the fact that it took a month to recover
part of the flight data recorder and cockpit from the bottom of the sea though, it's highly
unlikely that China or Russia would have any better luck in locating the other missing
wreckage, and for their part the US and Japan have both officially stopped looking. The contents of the flight data recorder are
naturally, classified, though what is known is that large parts of the information it
contains is missing due to damage. This implies a catastrophic crash into the
ocean, but what is stranger is the fact that the pilot never seemed to call for help or
indicate distress, aside from signaling an abort to the exercise. So what could have caused the crash? Perhaps there was a problem with the oxygen
delivery system similar to what plagued the early F-22s, which caused dizziness and even
blackouts among American pilots. If the pilot had experienced issues with his
oxygen delivery system, he could very well have gotten extremely confused, or outright
blacked out- that would explain the lack of radio communications as the plane plummeted
to its doom. However the F-22 oxygen system issues were
well documented across several aircraft, and no such problem has been made known about
the F-35, so it's highly unlikely that this was the case. Another theory is that the plane was purposefully
downed by a pre-positioned Chinese or Russian surface or aerial asset. Perhaps the plane was blasted by an electromagnetic
weapon which would have caused a loss of radio communications, and potentially loss of control
of the aircraft. Both China and Russia would have strong incentive
to get their hands on an F-35, even if it was a crashed one, in order to plunder the
secrets of its construction and materials. This too is unlikely though, as the F-35 is
hardened against EMPs and would have required a very powerful blast of electromagnetic energy
to seriously damage the craft. Even then its sensitive onboard radars would
have easily detected another plane or even drone in the area, and the other three flight
members would have definitely detected the discharge of a powerful electromagnetic weapon. If a traditional kinetic weapon such as a
missile was used, there's simply no way that the F-35's missile defense systems wouldn't
have reacted, and even that wouldn't explain the complete lack of communications. The last theory as to the cause of the crash
is probably our favorite, and one we're not surprised to hear about at all. This theory which is currently making the
rounds on the internet speculates that aliens disabled the aircraft either by accident or
on purpose. The thinking is that the F-35 presents one
of the most advanced fighter aircraft in the human arsenal, and perhaps the aliens were
testing their ability to knock one out of the sky in case of conflict. Or perhaps the aliens are intergalactic klutzes
and Space Cadet First Class Myxoblorp accidentally leaned on the death ray cannon's firing mechanism
and blasted the fighter jet to smithereens. In that case Japan is definitely owed reparations. In the case that the plane was blasted out
of the sky because of the threat it might represent, well then we'd have to be dealing
with pretty unimaginative aliens, as no species that can cross the galaxy should be afraid
of an air-breathing fighter jet that can't even leave the atmosphere. If they truly wanted to destroy us it would
be as easy as sitting in orbit and hurling large rocks down onto our heads. Whatever happened to the F-35 will probably
remain a mystery given how little evidence is publicly available given the extremely
classified nature of the F-35 program. Sadly what ultimately happened is likely only
known to a few select American and Japanese officials, but we here at The Infographics
Show are confident that it was in fact Myxoblorp who accidentally blasted the jet to pieces. He's always been an intergalactic klutz. If you liked this video, watch our other video:
US F-35 vs Russian Su-35 Fighter Jet - Which Would Win? And as always if you enjoyed this video don't
forget to Like, Share, and Subscribe for more great content.
