North Korea's Unconventional Threat

North Korea's antique airplane could be its most dangerous weapon yet amid escalating tensions with the United States. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may use a seemingly laughable, but key part of his arsenal, a old bi-plane, to infiltrate North Korea commandos or even a Weapon of Mass Destruction into South Korea as footage recently emerged of North Korea paratroopers jumping out of what seems to be two 70-year-old Antonov An-2 transport aircrafts. While the concept of Pyongyang using these Stalin-era planes seems far-fetched considering the nuclear weapons at its disposal, the aircrafts could be North Korea’s most deadly weapon.

The dated aircraft raises the concern that they could be used to transport a nuclear bomb to be dropped quite easily without triggering any radar at any specific target. According to several reports, the North Korean army has a fleet of 200 Antonov An-2 aircrafts. They were first “introduced” in 2015, but disregarded as obsolete by many. However, what makes them so dangerous is that they have an incredibly low radar profile, meaning they are difficult to track using conventional aircraft.

Antonov An-2 (NATO code name Colt) flies at such a slow speed and low altitude that modern surface-to-air missile systems would have a very hard time detecting and engaging them. The plane can carry 12 pasengers or paratropers up to 4,700 lbs and fly at a maximum speed of 160 miles per hour with a range of 525 miles allowing North Korea to fly deep into South Korea or launch from bases a considerable distance away from the demilitarized zone separating South and North Korea.

The aircraft, initially designed as a crop duster and utility transport, can land on short sections of a road that would make disembarking soldiers quite easy and sneaky. According to the BBC, the Antonov An-2 first flew in 1947 as the Soviet Union was rebuilding after the end of World War II. Aside from its remarkable short take-off and landing, it can basically fly backwards. “The reason the An-2 still flies is that there is really no other aircraft like it,” aviation writer Bernie Leighton, who has flown in an An-2 in Belarus, told the BCC. “If you need an aircraft that can carry 10 soldiers, people or goats, that can take off from anywhere and land anywhere ? it is either that or a helicopter.” The Soviet Union built more than 10,000 airplanes before it fell in 1991.

On 12 January 1968, a clandestine TACAN site (call sign: Lima Site 85/Phou Pha Ti) installed by the United States Air Force in Northern Laos for directing USAF warplanes flying from Thailand to Vietnam, was attacked by three North Vietnamese An-2s. Two An-2s fired on the outpost using machine guns and rockets while a third An-2 orbited overhead to survey the assault. An Air America Bell UH-1B, XW-PHF, resupplying the site chased the two attacking aircraft. By using an AK-47 the American crew (Ted Moore Captain, Glen Wood kicker) succeeded in shooting down one of the An-2s while the second aircraft was forced down by combined ground and air fire and crashed into a mountain. The surviving Antonov returned to its home base, Gia Lam, near Hanoi.

There are reports of Russian and fabrication firms from other countireiss modifying An-2 aircraft with composite materials, both lightening up the airframe for increased speed and decreasing the already small radar signature.