S Korea Troops Fire at Passenger Plane, June 18 2011

Al Jazeera
South Korean troops have fired at a passenger airliner flying from China with 119 people on board after mistaking it for a North Korean aircraft, South Korean military and aviation officials say.

 

Soldiers manning a guard post on Gyodong island, off the western coast of South Korea, fired their K-2 rifles towards the jet, which was descending as it approached Seoul’s Incheon International Airport, the officials said on Saturday.

“The firing continued about 10 minutes but the plane was too far off the rifle’s range and it did not receive any damage,” the South’s Yonhap news agency quoted a Marine Corps official as saying.

“When the plane appeared over Jumun island, soldiers mistook it as a North Korean military aircraft and fired.”

Full story here.