solarz
Brigadier
Not to China.
North Korean plane crashes in China
- Thread starter danielchin
- Start date
Not to China.
zoom
Junior Member
BEIJING, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- The plane that crashed in northeast China Tuesday was a military aircraft from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), sources with China's relevant government department said Thursday.
Investigations found that the crash was caused by mechanical failure, the sources said.
The plane, which crashed in Fushun County of Liaoning Province, lost its course because of mechanical failure and strayed into the Chinese territory.
China and the DPRK have reached consensus on coping with the aftermath. And the DPRK side has expressed regret to China for the accident, according to the sources.
So whether China were informed of the jet being in trouble beforehand or not, the big question for me is> was there an intercept? If there was prior knowledge surely they must have at least tried to get to it.If they were unaware of the intrusion, this begs the question why? - Why did DPRK not inform them and/or why did radar not detect it.? Personally i feel they must have scrambled something and knew of it's existence but what could they do except hope for the pilot to regain control? Furthermore,why did the pilot not eject?
Investigations found that the crash was caused by mechanical failure, the sources said.
The plane, which crashed in Fushun County of Liaoning Province, lost its course because of mechanical failure and strayed into the Chinese territory.
China and the DPRK have reached consensus on coping with the aftermath. And the DPRK side has expressed regret to China for the accident, according to the sources.
So whether China were informed of the jet being in trouble beforehand or not, the big question for me is> was there an intercept? If there was prior knowledge surely they must have at least tried to get to it.If they were unaware of the intrusion, this begs the question why? - Why did DPRK not inform them and/or why did radar not detect it.? Personally i feel they must have scrambled something and knew of it's existence but what could they do except hope for the pilot to regain control? Furthermore,why did the pilot not eject?
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Thanks for the update! There is probably more to the story than we know but at least mechanical failure satisfactorily explains why the plane was heading into China.
We have to keep in mind that North Korea is an impoverished nation and that every plane is precious to them. The pilot may have been punished if he simply ejected (I don't know whether the ejection seats have been tampered with).
solarz
Brigadier
That is true. I have seen a TV show in China which commended the courage of a Chinese pilot for trying to (and succeeding in) bringing his jet back under control at the risk of his own life.
I think that was the J-10 pilot, wasn't it? Also keep in mind that airfields in China are sometimes inconveniently located next to major urban centers. If the pilot were to eject the plane could easily crash into peoples' homes, Malls, restaurants, etc. A pilot who sacrificed himself to avoid crashing his J-7trainer into houses was similarly commended by the media.
Maggern
Junior Member
I feel the mechanical failure thingy might be an easy way to shrug off the whole incident. I mean, the plane was WAY off into Chinese airspace. At what point would the pilot realize that the mountains surrounding him (and the cities below him) where definately nowhere near his home airbase, nor in North Korea at all...If the mechanical failure was of a nature so that the plane would endlessly fly in one direction, that seems a bit weird...what were the odds that was straight for Shenyang?
I can buy mechanical failure as a reason for the crash, but I still doubt it explains what the plane was doing there in the first place..
I can buy mechanical failure as a reason for the crash, but I still doubt it explains what the plane was doing there in the first place..
Semi-Lobster
Junior Member
Because, as already stated in this thread, the airbase the MiG-21 is from is in Northern North Korea, he would literally have to fly across all of North Korea to get to South Korea with little fuel and at the same time have to bypass the entire North Korean Air Force
Maggern
Junior Member
OK, so if Google Earth serves me right, Sinujiu is right at the border, at the opposite bank of the Yalu from Dandong. That means a pilot could easily stray into Chinese airpsace if he suddenly went blind. However, I'm sure pilots at that airbase know perfectly well the terrain around the border and would surely know when they were not on home turf anymore. It could be that the pilot had some problems, strayed into China, feared he would be accused of defecting and therefore simply continued on his path, taking his chances with whereever he ended up. At the end there was some kind of failure and the plane crashed, the pilot either unintentionally dying by some failure in his ejection seat (or a lack thereof), or decided he might as well kill himself.