Japan air force training jet crashe killing two

A Japanese air force training jet ripped through a power supply line and crashed into a river northwest of Tokyo on Monday, killing the two crewmen aboard and causing a power outage in the capital.

A Japanese air force training jet ripped through a power supply line and crashed into a river northwest of Tokyo on Monday, killing the two crewmen aboard and causing a power outage in the capital.

The T-33 jet, from a Japanese Air Self-Defense Force base in Iruma, crashed near a junior high school, but there were no reports of casualties on the ground, said local police spokesman Masami Yoshida.

Witnesses said the plane exploded in flames as it slammed into the Iruma River on the outskirts of the city, national broadcaster NHK reported.

As many of 800,000 homes were out of electricity in the Tokyo metropolitan area after the jet cut through a 275,000-volt power transmission line, said Yoichi Takeuchi, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co. Ltd.

The outage, affecting Tokyo and nearby Saitama Prefecture, also temporarily stopped trains running to the busy Ginza and Shimbashi districts of the capital and shut down ATM machines in the capital.