Japan Loses a Global Hawk Off Tottori, the First Since the Drone Reached Misawa

A Japan Air Self-Defense Force RQ-4B Global Hawk is presumed to have crashed into the Sea of Japan on September 15, 2026, after operators at Misawa Air Base lost contact with it. It is the first Global Hawk Japan has lost since the surveillance drone entered service with the JASDF.

Japan operates only three of the aircraft, and all of them fly from Misawa. No injuries or damage on the surface had been reported as of the evening of the crash.

What Happened Over the Sea of Japan

The aircraft took off from Misawa Air Base in Aomori Prefecture at about 10:20 a.m. local time. It was assigned to the 502nd Squadron, the unit that flies Japan’s small Global Hawk fleet.

Problems with the aircraft’s communications equipment began after 12:55 p.m. Three minutes later the radar track disappeared over international waters roughly 31 miles (50 km) north of Tottori Prefecture, in western Japan.

The JASDF said the floating debris was likely part of the missing drone, and now presumes the aircraft crashed. Reporting by The Aviationist identifies it as tail number 23-6003, an RQ-4B Block 30, and says the search drew in F-15s, a U-125A, a UH-60J and a coast guard MQ-9B.

Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi ordered the force to search for the aircraft, check whether anything on the surface had been damaged and keep local authorities informed, NHK reported.

Gen. Takehiro Morita, the ASDF’s most senior uniformed officer, told a news conference the aircraft had not been training when it was lost. He declined to describe what it was doing, saying the specifics concern how the force operates.

Why One Airframe Is a Third of the Capability

The Global Hawk is a high-altitude, long-endurance surveillance aircraft built by Northrop Grumman. It has flown with the U.S. Air Force since 2001, and the manufacturer says the fleet has accumulated more than 320,000 flight hours.

What makes the type valuable is duration rather than speed. Northrop Grumman says the aircraft can stay airborne for more than 30 hours at a stretch, watching a wide area of ocean without putting a crew at risk.

That endurance is the reason a single loss stings. Unlike a fighter squadron with dozens of airframes, Japan’s entire high-altitude reconnaissance capability rests on three aircraft, so losing one cuts the available coverage by roughly a third until it is replaced.

The aircraft are not cheap to replace either. Japanese Defense Ministry documents cited by Nikkei put the unit cost at about 17.3 billion yen, roughly $112 million, as of 2019.

Japan took delivery of the drones and stood up a dedicated reconnaissance unit at Misawa in 2022, giving the JASDF its first uncrewed wide-area surveillance arm. The fleet is used for the patient, unglamorous work of watching the seas and airspace around the country.

Japan’s uncrewed fleet has had a cleaner record than its crewed one, which has absorbed several mishaps in recent years, including an F-15 landing gear collapse at Naha. Readers who want the wider picture can compare the Global Hawk with the other military drones in service around the world.