Flight 007 Near-Redux
By This is alarming:
According to the South Korean government, on Tuesday a South China Airlines plane carrying 220 civilians narrowly missed being hit by a North Korean missile after it flew into the missile’s trajectory. The missile and plane crossed the same path just seven short minutes apart. No one was harmed. The plane had been flying to Shenyang, China from Narita airport in Japan.
A South Korean Defense Ministry spokesperson told Bloomberg News: “The rocket could have hit the plane on its way down. North Korea had not given any warning [of the missile launch]. It was an unexpected and immoral act that goes against international norms.” The same spokesperson confirmed that Seoul had passed along information about the near miss to its allies in Beijing. Neither the airline nor China has responded to inquiries or acknowledged the near collision yet.
The chance of a ballistic missile accidentally hitting an airliner in flight is, to put it mildly, extraordinarily small. Nevertheless, you kind of wish Kim Jong Eun hadn’t shot all of the people who believed that informing neighboring countries of impending missile launches might be a good idea.