According to the officials Coastguards and helicopters were searching for the missing fishermen after the accident. A Japanese naval vessel, Atago destroyer, hit the Seitoku Maru fishing boat early on Tuesday 19 off Chiba prefecture’s Nojimazaki Cape. This collision has broken the fishing boat into two and the fishermen were went missing.
Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba told that the Atago is one of several Japanese navy ships equipped with the high-tech Aegis radar tracking system. He added that it is extremely regrettable that this sort of accident has happened. He also said that the authority is doing all to search for and save the missing fishermen and also probing the reason behind the collision.
The two fishermen, 58-year-old Haruo Kichisei and his son Tetsuhiro, had been out fishing for tuna, officials informed. The Atago was on its way back to the Yokosuka naval base from a training exercise in Hawaii when it collided with the fishing boat. A similar incident occurred in December when an armed vessel with a Standard-3 missile defence system shot down a mock ballistic missile launched from a US base in Hawaii.
