Aircraft crashes in northern China and kills North Korean pilot

This image, posted on the internet by a Chinese citizen,
allegedly shows a North Korean aircraft that went down
in Liaoning province. Photograph: Yonhap/EPA

Aircraft that crashed in northern China may have been trying to defect to Russia

Aircraft that crashed in northern China may have been trying to defect to Russia

Residents say a small aircraft that crashed in northern China was a helicopter carrying a North Korean pilot, who died, a villager said today.

The official Xinhua news agency said in a brief report that an aircraft went down yesterday afternoon in Lagu village, in Fushun county. The county, in Liaoning province, lies about 90 miles from the North Korean border.

A man who lives in Ersonggou village, about three miles from the crash site, said about 100 police have cordoned off the area.

The man, who would give only his surname, Ning, said he heard from other locals that the craft was a helicopter that had flown from North Korea, and that the pilot was killed on impact.

Ning said no buildings were hit and no one on the ground was reported injured.

An official with the Liaoning Communist party press office in the provincial capital of Shenyang confirmed a small craft had crashed in Lagu. The woman, who gave her surname as Wang, said no other details were immediately available. She said an investigation was under way.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency cited an intelligence official whom it did not identify as saying the pilot may have been attempting to defect to Russia.

Refugees from desperately poor North Korea regularly flee across the border into China, usually by swimming across the Yalu river or walking across it in winter.

A duty officer said China's foreign ministry spokesman's office had no information about the incident.

Source: guardian.co.uk