Documents / FOIA release
This Foreign Broadcast Information Service report, dated 11 February 1992 and relayed through the Joint Staff, carries a Seoul Yonhap English dispatch. Radar detected an intruder over the West Sea south of China's Shandong Peninsula. It moved at about 630 knots and then disappeared about 128 kilometers west of Kunsan. The South Korean Air Force sent up 18 fighters, a helicopter and a C-130, which found nothing. A spokesman said the contact was probably a radar ghost signal caused by overlapping surveillance systems.
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INQUIRE=DOC17D ITEM NO=00068039 ENVELOPE CDSN = LGX572 MCN = 92042/12935 TOR = 920420826 PTTUZYUW RUEKJCS2305 0420824-UUUU--RUEALGX. ZNR UUUUU HEADER P 110824Z FEB 92 FM JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC INFO RUEALGX/SAFE P 110811Z FEB 92 FM FBIS SEOUL KOR TO AIG 4596 RUESDG/FBIS HONG KONG ACCT FBSK-EWDK BT CONTROLS UNCLAS 4D SERIAL: SK1102081192 BODY COUNTRY: ROK SUBJ: UNIDENTIFIED PLANE 'MIGHT HAVE BEEN A PHANTOM' REF: SK1102050992 SEOUL YONHAP ENGLISH 110501--FIGHTER PLANES SCRAMBLE TO INTERCEPT UNIDENTIFIED PLANE SOURCE: SEOUL YONHAP IN ENGLISH 0749 GMT 11 FEB 92 TEXT: ((TEXT)) SEOUL, FEB. 11 (YONHAP) -- THE INTRUDER THAT SENT SOUTH KOREAN AIR FORCE PLANES SCRAMBLING LATE TUESDAY MORNING MIGHT HAVE BEEN A PHANTOM, AN AIR FORCE SPOKESMAN SAID. RADAR INDICATED AN INTRUDING PLANE IN THE WEST SEA AIRSPACE AT 10:05, BUT FIGHTERS SENT UP TO INVESTIGATE FOUND NOTHING IN THE AREA. A SEARCH IS CONTINUING. THE UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT WAS SOME 24 KILOMETERS (15 MILES) SOUTH OF THE SHANDONG PENINSULA IN CHINA WHEN IT WAS FIRST DETECTED ON AIR FORCE RADAR AND, MOVING AT NEARLY THE SPEED OF SOUND, REACHED SOME 128 KILOMETERS (80 MILES) WEST OF KUNSAN IN KOREA BY 10:20, WHEN IT SUDDENLY DISAPPEARED FROM THE RADAR, THE AIR FORCE SAID. AT THE TIME IT APPEARED ON RADAR, THE PHANTOM WAS FLYING AT 630 KNOTS (1,160 KPH OR 724 MPH), HE SAID. THE AIR FORCE PROMPTLY SCRAMBLED 18 FIGHTER PLANES, A RESCUE HELICOPTER AND A C-130 TRANSPORT, BUT THEY FOUND NOTHING IN THE AREA, HE SAID. THE AIR FORCE SUSPECTS THAT A GHOST SIGNAL WAS CAUSED ON THE RADAR DUE TO AN OVERLAPPING OF AIR SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS, THE OFFICER SAID. HE EXPLAINED THAT SOMETIMES, DUE TO SUCH PULSES, BIRDS APPEAR ON
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 2 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.