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.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, a senior figure in the country's ruling party, met with Donald Trump on Tuesday, becoming the latest US ally seeking to establish ties with the Republican presidential candidate.
Five migrants, including a child, died in an attempt to cross the English Channel from France to Britain in an overcrowded small boat on Tuesday, hours after Britain passed a bill to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda in a move to deter the dangerous journeys.
Israel bombarded northern Gaza overnight in some of the heaviest shelling in weeks, causing panic amongst residents and flattening neighbourhoods in an area from which the Israeli army had previously down its troops, residents said on Tuesday.
Russia launched a drone attack on Ukraine that injured seven people in the Black Sea port of Odesa, two of them children, and also targeted Kyiv, the capital, Ukraine's military officials said early on Tuesday.
A Delhi court on Tuesday extended the pre-trial detention of Indian opposition leader Arvind Kejriwal until May 7 in a corruption case, the legal news website Live Law reported.