Passenger plane crew says it saw N. Korean missile explode
A commercial airline crew witnessed the flight of an enormous North Korean missile believed capable of reaching Washington, D.C., Cathay Pacific officials confirmed on Monday.
“Be advised, we witnessed the DPRK missile blow up and fall apart near our current location,” the crew of Cathay Pacific Flight 893 reported Wednesday, according to a company message obtained by the South China Morning Post.
On Monday, the company said in a statement that the San Francisco-toHong Kong flight was “far from the event location” and continued flying normally after the missile reentered the atmosphere.
The airline said it does not plan to change its flight routes, even as North Korea seems intent on testing ever more technologically advanced missiles while it trades threats with the United States about a possible nuclear conflict.
The launch of the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile was the latest, and the largest and furthest flying, in a series of tests by North Korea this year.
It launched just before 3 a.m. Wednesday, as The Washington Post previously reported.
It flew for nearly an hour on a vertical trajectory that took it 2,800 miles above the Earth — a thrust that North Korea and international experts say could have taken it to the U.S. East Coast if the missile’s angle were adjusted.
North Korea claims the new Hwasong-15 can carry a heavy warhead, although analysts say the one tested had an extremely light payload that allowed it to fly farther. And the country has much work to do before it can, as it has threatened, land a nuclear warhead in the United States.
The missile tested Wednesday crashed into the waters off Japan, 620 miles from launch site in North Korea.
That’s when the crew of Cathay Pacific Flight 893 “reported a sighting of what is suspected to be the reentry of the recent DPRK test missile,” the airline said in its statement.