The Japan Air Self-Defence Force confirmed Wednesday morning local time that a missing F-35A has crashed. The pilot remains missing. The crashed aircraft, which the JASDF identified as serial number 79-8705, was the first of 13 Japanese F-35As assembled so far by Mitsubishi’s final assembly and check out facility in Nagoya. Japan had only stood up its first F-35A squadron at the end of last month, with the 302nd Hikotai established in Misawa with 13 F-35As following its transfer from Hyakuri, north of Japan’s capital Tokyo, where it had been operating the Mitsubishi F-4EJ Phantom II.