Japan’s Global Hawk drone goes missing over sea: What happened?

In the latest update, a Japanese Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle has gone missing over the Sea of Japan on Tuesday, sparking uncertainty about what happened to the aircraft and triggering a formal investigation.

According to reports, the Japan Air Self-Defense initiated a search mission after losing communication with the drone. Communication was primarily lost at around 12:58 pm while the drone was flying about 50 kilometers off the coast of Tottori Prefecture in western Japan.

Given the situation, the defense force refused to specify the details of the aircraft’s mission, detailing it as a training flight. The Coast Guard later described that destruction believed to be from Global Hawk was found at sea.

Meanwhile, search teams using ASDF aircraft, Maritime self-defense force vessels and the Japan Coast Guard have spotted possible debris, leading officials to presume a crash while Japan’s other two drones remain operational in the wake of the ongoing recovery efforts.

Japan has three active RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drones; moreover they were first deployed at Misawa Air Base in northeastern Japan in 2022.