Flight safety fears after 3 airline crews see Kim’s missile in the air

FEARS were raised for airline safety yesterday as it emerged that three commercial flights reported sighting the missile launched by North Korea last week as it flew over Japan.

Crew on a Cathay Pacific plane witnessed what is believed to be the missile’s reentry into the earth’s atmosphere, reporting that they saw it ‘blow up and fall apart near our current location’.

The captain of a Korean Air flight approaching South Korea’s Incheon Airport from San Francisco also told ground control he saw a flash about an hour after the missile was launched from a site to the north of Pyongyang on November 29.

Four minutes later another Korean Air pilot crossing the Sea of Japan inbound from Los Angeles reported a similar flash.

The airline said neither plane was in danger but the sightings will fuel concerns that North Korean leader Kim Jongun’s missile tests could hit passenger jets. The missile was in the air for 53 minutes and ended up in Japanese waters.