Low-altitude Flight

[Anchor Lead]

A Japanese maritime patrol aircraft has again made a threatening, low-altitude flight toward a South Korean naval ship on the 23rd. The flight altitude was much lower this time compared to the incident last month, and the Japanese plane ignored dozens of warnings communicated by the Korean vessel.

[Pkg]

Around 2 p.m. Wednesday, a P-3 patrol aircraft from the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force approached the South Korean Navy destroyer Dae Jo-yeong some 130 kilometers southwest of Ieodo reef off the south coast. The destroyer was conducting normal patrol operations at the time. It communicated its activity to the aircraft some 20 times and even warned of taking "self-defense measures" but the Japanese plane again flew at a threateningly low altitude. It approached the Korean destroyer as close as 540 meters away in distance and 60 meters in altitude. 60 meters is far below the 150 meter altitude Japan had claimed to be the international standard when it made a similar low altitude flight near Korea's Gwanggaeto the Great destroyer on December 20th. The latest flight was also aggressive in nature. The aircraft approached from behind and made a sudden dash toward the destroyer. Then it flew side by side with the vessel to the right and later cut across the front of the ship and went on to fly in circles. Such flight patterns are all banned under international practice. Especially flying in parallel to a warship is considered the most aggressive move as it resembles the posture of firing a missile.

[Soundbite] Seo Wook(Joint Chiefs of Staff) : "It is clearly a provocative act that the Japanese aircraft continued with a low-altitude, close-range flight even after identifying the Korean warship."

It's also been confirmed that Japanese patrol aircraft made low altitude flights toward Korean Navy warships actually twice more in the past week. Some pundits speculate Japan's provocative move may be intentional in order to induce the Korean Navy to activate its tracking radar system.