The crew on board a Cathay Pacific flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong reported seeing a North Korean ballistic missile fall out of the sky last week and into the Sea of Japan, the airline confirmed on Monday, according to the South China Morning Post.
“Be advised, we witnessed the DPRK missile blow up and fall apart near our current location,” a company message reported the crew of Cathay Pacific Flight 893 as saying. Flight trackers put the Cathay Pacific plane somewhere near Japan when the crew reported seeing the missile, The Guardian reported.
On November 29, North Korea tested its Hwasong-15 missile, claiming it had the capability to reach all of America.
“Though the flight was far from the event location, the crew advised Japan [air traffic control] according to procedure,” a spokesperson for the airline told the South China Morning Post. The airline said flight operations were not affected. A Cathay Pacific cargo plane – CX096 – may have been closer to the missile, according to the report.
Cathay Pacific does not plan to change its flight routes for now.
After the missile launch in November, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “declared with pride that now we have finally realised the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force”.
Pentagon officials said the missile was launched from Sain Ni in North Korea and travelled about 1,000 km before landing in the Sea of Japan within 370 nautical km from Japan’s coast. It flew for 53 minutes, Japan’s defence minister said.
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