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Series of Nork fighter jet crashes last year
TOKYO, Feb. 17 (Yonhap) -- A series of North Korean fighter jets crashed last year during training held in response to military exercises in South Korea, a high-level Seoul official said Thursday.North Korea views military drills in the South, including those involving American troops, as preparations to invade the country, and puts its own forces on alert and stages counter-exercises. Holding such counter-drills, which drain its scarce resources, are considered painful to the impoverished nation. South Korea and the U.S. are believed to have held more military drills than usual last year in an attempt to put pressure on the communist nation that was blamed for the sinking of the South's warship Cheonan in March and shelled the South's border island of Yeonpyeong in November. "If exercises are held in the South, the North cannot but stage counter-exercises. That is bound to increase difficulties (in the North) under the current situation," a high-level South Korean official visiting Tokyo told reporters. "North Korean troops also appear to suffer as they have to get into underground tunnels" during such drills. The official said that the North suffered a series of fighter jet crashes during such counter-exercises last year, but did not provide specifics, such as when and how many jets went down. North Korean fighter jets are considered vulnerable to crashes as pilots often lack adequate training due to scant fuel. "I think there were many crashes as they did a lot of training to counter exercises in the South in a situation where fuel is not enough and the number of training sessions was not high," the official said on condition of anonymity. Posted by: Steve White 2011-02-18 |
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