South Korea rules out navy ship sunk by North Korea

South Korea rules out navy ship sunk by North Korea

www.reuters.com

South Korea on Saturday all but ruled out the chance that North Korea was involved in the sinking of one of its navy vessels near their disputed border.

"Given the investigations by government ministries so far, it is the government's judgment that the incident was not caused by North Korea, although the reason for the accident has not been determined yet," a senior government official was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency

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Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
South Korean navy ship sinks, North link played down

Who actually believes this ship was not attacked? The quotes below certainly paint a very different picture as to what actually happened.

An unidentified reason caused a hole in the ship, which led to its sinking. Rescue efforts are under way," the ministry said.

"The ship fired a warning shot at an unidentified object, and the object was later suspected to have been a flock of birds. But we are checking," it said

The loud firing sound remained for about 15 minutes, while I watched TV. I never heard such loud firing sound in my entire life staying at (the) island, and the sound was definitely different from those heard from usual drills," Yonhap news agency quoted one 56-year-old resident on a nearby island as saying

A flock of birds? Is it common for a Navy Vessel to fire upon a flock of birds by accident?



www.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 27-3-2010 by grantbeed]

It is better to "fire at flock of birds" while loosing a vessel and sadly dozens of people, then to start a war in which millions would perish. I think that whatever happened , it was not sanctioned by N/S Korean governments and they very wisely stayed out of war.
Certainly sad time for crew members and families of dead, and declaring that military ship was lost to flock of birds does not honor the casualties. But it prevents future greater losses.

reply to post by ZeroKnowledge


I think you may be correct. Something definatley out of place happened here, and maybe it will never be known. The families of the dead are furious about the lack of info though.

Relatives of marines missing after a South Korean military ship sank near the disputed sea border with North Korea are protesting over a lack of information about what caused the disaster.

About 150 family members at Pyeongtaek naval base south of Seoul pushed their way past security guards Saturday to confront military officials. Screaming "Liars!" some climbed onto the rescued captain's car as he was driving away.

www.klewtv.com...

A flock of birds certainly does no justice at all.

Well its plausable, as the ship in question has already sank (most likely from a ammunition explosion) when the other vessel accompanying it began firing upon the birds.Birds are pretty jumpy at anything, and i'd imagine a ammo explosion would send a flock of sea-birds off into the air pretty quick.

The other Ship not knowing what had gone on began firing, thinking it was a N.Korean jet, UAV or whatever, out panic until they were told to stand down or the birds had gone out of range.

Could have been a mine.... Have they mentioned that yet?
I'm sure those waters were mined all the dogsh#t back in the 50's?


It would make sense, since they did not have any subs under radar or NK vessels in the area...

Hmm...?


[edit on 27-3-2010 by CanadianDream420]

reply to post by CanadianDream420


Could have been, but a witness reported 15 minutes of firing before it. Strange.

Yeah, whatever. According to first hand report:

“There is no possibility whatsoever that the ship sank due to an internal explosion or a collision with a reef. I guarantee that,” a navy lieutenant was quoted as saying by participants in a briefing session organized by the Navy’s Second Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province -- the home port of the ill-fated ship.

www.koreaherald.co.kr...

It's entirely possible that this was an accident, although I am sceptical given where it happened. Even the much vaunted Royal Navy at the height of its power has lost ships to accidents and procedures not being followed.

At the Battle of Jutland, many of the Navy's new Battlecruisers were destroyed after taking just a couple of hits of German ships.

It wasn't the shells that destroyed these behemoths, but rather the fact the crew didn't follow ammunition handling correctly and the explosions flashed back through open hatches into the magazines.

Admiral Jellico at the time said his famous quote as the ships started popping around him

"There is somethign wrong with our bloody ships today...."

Also, the Mary Rose was lost when in Battle with the French in the Solent in 1542 (I think). It wasn't sunk by enemy fire, but rather by not securing gun ports before performing a tight turn so she could broadside the french gun galleys. Water flooded into the gun ports and sank the ship in short order.

I know that what I described abover are combat situations, but it shows what a difference it can make when crews don't follow procedure correctly.

Perhaps its sabotage, just thinking out loud here, then again what do i know.

Sorry for the one liner, but simple things are often the best.

South Korea may be ruling it out, because they want to avoid war.

But I am a neutral party and my opinion bears little to no political weight.

I am NOT Ruling out that possibility.

In fact, I feel it is quite likely!

The fact there was firing for 15 minutes before this happened makes me believe they were firing at something, even an incoming missile.

The North Koreans are rumoured to have 'Silkworms' -

reply to post by grantbeed


Silkworms come in above the surface of the water though.

The damage to the ship is said to be the lower hull, where the explosion occurred.

This description fits a Torpedo or a Mine, not the expected damage from a cruise missile, where the upper half of the ship would have been most damaged.

[edit on 27-3-2010 by muzzleflash]

Something stinks. The initial reports are quite different to what they're saying now. Originally they stated that a South Korean ship had sank after an explosion whilst in disputed waters near NK.

The first thing I thought was either a mine, or China used a sub against them.

Given the absolutely crazy reports (as above), I'm guessing China was behind it as they are now reporting that NK had nothing to do with it, but do not mention China at all (even though it is known that China look out for NK militarily).

[edit on 27-3-2010 by mirageofdeceit]

reply to post by muzzleflash


good point Muzzleflash. Whatever it was, they sure were not firing at birds though.

Ive been hunting for hours trying to find any other incidents with the Navy firing on birds, and can't find anything.



[edit on 27-3-2010 by grantbeed]

reply to post by muzzleflash


You're also unlikely to be firing for 15 minutes at an incoming silkworm, unless it took its time and decided to catch a bus...

reply to post by stumason


yeh , you're right. 15 minutes firing can only mean one thing surely..another ship?

then again where it sank is pretty shallow, infact the Hull of the sunken boat is just visible poking out the waters. So a Sub would have to be stalking quite far offshore out of the Coral. But as the Captain did refer to the list as "to the right" it does point in the direction of the deeper Pacific.

One other wild theory i'm throwing out here, is a trained Dolphin with explosives strapped to it. It would be able to swim as far as it wants without being detected, detonate the device UNDER the water and nobody would suspect a thing.

reply to post by stumason


Yeah thats a good point. I didn't think of that.

Silkworms are said to be extremely fast, so the incoming time available to fire at it would have to be minimal at best.

Torpedoes are for sure a whole lot slower, but I have never heard of anyone firing shots at a torpedo that is just bizarre.

I can't really determine what was being fired at with the conflicting and limited data available.

1) Incoming missile?
2) Distant Warship ?
3) Birds? (doesn't make sense)
4) Torpedo? (doesn't make sense)

I'll discard 3 and 4 for absurdity.
And I have to discard 1 because who has 15minutes to fire shots at an incoming missile?

So I am left with #2, a distant warship.

Considering modern technology, I am going to assume that they hit the ship they were firing at.

So, is North Korea covering up the loss of 1-2 of it's own ships? This seems incredibly likely.

I liked the comment someone made that China could be behind this, but I feel that they would not get involved in this particular manner in this very important strategic location. The context here is important because it really does point the finger at the "enemy combatant" being North Korea, almost assuredly.

reply to post by grantbeed


good 1

Who really knows what happened eh? Has South Korea lied? to save a war... or has some terrible accident really occured on the border's with NK.





Whats NK's response?