2 US warplanes crash off Japan; 1 crew dead, 5 missing
Tokyo, Dec 7: One of two crew members recovered after two US warplanes collided and crashed off Japan's coast early Thursday is dead and five others remain missing, the US military said.
The Marine Corps said the other recovered crew member was in fair condition.
Both were in an F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet that collided with a KC-130 Hercules refueling aircraft during training at about 2 am after taking off from their base in Iwakuni, near Hiroshima. The five others were in the KC-130.
The Marine Corps identified the dead crew member on Friday as Capt Jahmar Resilard, 28, of Miramar, Florida, an F/A-18 pilot with Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 242.
The Marines said in a statement that the two planes were involved in routine training, including aerial refuelling, but that it was still investigating what caused the crash.
President Donald Trump tweeted that his thoughts and prayers were with the Marine Corps crew members involved in the collision. He thanked US Forces in Japan for their "immediate response and rescue efforts" and said "whatever you need, we are here for you".
The crash took place 320 kilometres (200 miles) off the coast, according to the US military. Japanese officials said it occurred closer to the coast, about 100 kilometres (60 miles), and that's where the search and rescue mission found the two crew members.
Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force, which dispatched aircraft and vessels to join in the search operation, said Japanese rescuers found one of the crew from the fighter jet in stable condition.
The Marines said the crew member was taken to a hospital on the base in Iwakuni and was in fair condition, but did not provide any other details.
Japan's coast guard also joined the search.
The crash is the latest in recent series of accidents involving the US military deployed to and near Japan.
Last month, a US Navy F/A-18 Hornet from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan crashed into the sea southwest of Japan's southern island of Okinawa, though its two pilots were rescued safely.
In mid-October, a MH-60 Seahawk also belonging to the Ronald Reagan crashed off the Philippine Sea shortly after takeoff, causing non-fatal injuries to a dozen sailors.
More than 50,000 US troops are based in Japan under a bilateral security pact.
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After poll debacle, defeated MVA candidates to seek verification of EVM-VVPAT units
Mumbai(PTI): The Maha Vikas Aghadi candidates who faced defeat in the recent Maharashtra assembly polls have decided to seek verification of the EVM-Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) units in their segments, a leader of the opposition alliance said.
Many losing candidates of the opposition Shiv Sena (UBT) pointed fingers at the functioning of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during their interaction with party head Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday.
Thackeray took stock of the lacklustre performance of his party at a meeting held at his residence in Mumbai.
The poll verdict last week saw the Mahayuti coalition, comprising the Shiv Sena, BJP, and NCP, retaining power with a massive mandate, pushing the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) to margins.
The Mahayuti won 230 seats and MVA only 46 in the 288-member House.
The Thackeray-led Sena (UBT) emerged as the largest party in the opposition camp by winning 20 seats, followed by Congress which bagged 16 constituencies, while the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) sits at the bottom with a tally of 10 seats.
Talking to PTI on Tuesday, Congress leader Arif Naseem Khan, who lost the election from Chandivali assembly constituency in Mumbai, said he held a discussion with Thackeray, who also said he has got complaints from his party workers that EVMs could have been tampered.
"We are getting complaints from different parts of the state expressing doubts over the results. In a democracy, complaints need to be verified and many of us, including myself, (who faced defeat) are in the process of applying for the verification," Khan said.
As per the Supreme Court's judgement on April 26 this year, the burnt memory/microcontroller in 5 per cent of the EVMs - the control unit, ballot unit and the VVPAT - per assembly constituency shall be checked and verified by a team of engineers from manufacturers of the EVMs, after the announcement of results, for any tampering or modification, he said.
A written request for this has to be made by candidates who are in the second or third position behind the highest polled candidate.
Such a request has to be made within seven days of declaration of the result, Khan said.
A candidate making the request will have to pay the expenses of Rs 41,000 which will be refunded in case the machine is found to be tampered with, he said.
The microcontroller is a one-time programmable chip embedded into the three units of EVM-Ballot Unit, Control Unit and the VVPAT - at the time of manufacturing, as per the SC.
A Sena (UBT) MLA from Mumbai has claimed there were discrepancies between the votes polled and the votes counted in the EVMs.
"Almost all candidates raised doubts over the EVMs," the legislator said.
