Fire on board North Korean passenger jet forces it to make emergency landing in China

[KimJongilia]

Fire on board North Korean passenger jet forces it to make emergency landing in China

PUBLISHED : Friday, 22 July, 2016, 1:57pm
UPDATED : Friday, 22 July, 2016, 1:57pm

Kyodo Staff Reporter

A North Korean passenger aircraft travelling from Pyongyang to Beijing has made an emergency landing in an northeastern Chinese city after catching fire, Xinhua reported.

The Air Koryo plane, North Korea’s state-owned and only airline, landed at an airport in Shenyang, in northeastern China on Friday, after the aircraft caught fire, the news agency reported.

Xinhua said news of the incident had come from a passenger aboard the aircraft.

Flight tracking websites showed that the Air Koryo plane, a 1993 Tupolev Tu-204, was diverted shortly after crossing over the border between the two countries at about 8.25am Chinese time.

It landed at about 8.50am at Shenyang’s Taoxian International Airport.

Air Koryo operates scheduled flights to a handful of destinations in China and Russia, and charter flights to airports in China, Pakistan and Kuwait.