Damaged Flight Data Recorder of Japanese F-35 Jet Recovered from Seabed.

Heavily damaged flight data recorder of the crashed Japanese F-35 fighter jet with its storage medium missing had been recovered by the deep sea search vessel Van Gogh along with a piece from the canopy since Friday, Defence Minister Iwaya told a press conference today.

The defense minister said the Air Self Defence Force (ASDF) will continue its operation with United States military support to recover the debris of single-seat stealth jet. The aircraft's pilot still remains missing.

The F-35A went down April 9 off Aomori Prefecture in northeastern Japan during an ASDF night exercise, after taking off from Misawa Air Base in the prefecture. The jet simply vanished from radar screens without giving any distress signal.

The search operation is being conducted by a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force vessel, a deep-sea research ship owned by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, and the Van Gogh.

Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said Tuesday that the debris of a flight data recorder from a crashed Japanese Air Self-Defense Force F-35A had been recovered from the Pacific seabed but the storage medium was missing.