Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya and U.S. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan agreed Friday to step up cooperation both in the search for an F-35A fighter that crashed off Aomori Prefecture and in the investigation into the cause of the accident.

Iwaya and Shanahan reached the agreement in a meeting at the Pentagon. Both countries are concerned about the implications of the next-generation aircraft being recovered by a rival like China or Russia as it could constitute a major military intelligence security breach.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Iwaya said Shanahan told him that the United States will dispatch a deep-sea search ship to the crash site in a joint effort with the Maritime Self-Defense Force to recover the bulk of the wreckage of the Lockheed Martin-designed aircraft.