http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/03/nkorea.intercept/index.htmlWASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration plans to formally protest North Korea\'s actions during a weekend incident in which four North Korean jet fighters intercepted a U.S. surveillance plane over the Sea of Japan, officials said Monday.
The administration also said the incident could persuade China and Russia to be more open to U.S. requests to apply pressure on Pyongyang.
"As they look at the facts of what happened here, it will be hard for Russia and China not to conclude, \'OK, now North Korea has gone too far,\'" a senior administration official told CNN.
Tension has been rising on the Korean Peninsula since North Korea disclosed in October that it had renewed efforts to develop nuclear weapons it swore off of in a 1994 agreement.
The official said the forum for lodging a formal protest had not been settled on, but that one possible method would be to communicate with North Korean diplomats at the United Nations. Japan and South Korea are being consulted on the best approach, that official and others said.
"There is no question this is a higher-level provocation than what we have been seeing," the senior official said. "This is a type of situation where one miscalculation and people lose their lives, and then there is the risk of some counter-response where more people can lose their lives."
U.S. military sources said Monday that the RC-135S surveillance aircraft was in international airspace about 150 miles [240 kilometers] off the Korean peninsula when four armed North Korean MiGs approached and flew alongside for 20 minutes, at some points coming within 50 feet of the U.S. plane. The Air Force plane returned to its base in Okinawa, Japan, without further incident.
One of the North Korean fighters locked its acquisition radar onto the RC-135S, a method used by fighter aircraft to locate another plane in the air, a Pentagon official said. At least two of the planes were MiG-29s. The two other fighters were thought to be MiG-23s.
Pentagon: Intercept took coordination
Pentagon officials say the encounter was obviously well-planned and premeditated because the MiGs have a relatively short range, so for them to fly 150 miles offshore, shadow the U.S. plane and still have fuel to get back would require a coordinated plan that pre-positioned the planes to make the intercept.
"This was obviously ordered by higher-ups," one Pentagon official said.
Pentagon officials were trying to interpret the North Koreans\' action Monday.
One theory is that North Korea was trying to engage the United States in order to provoke a response, much as China did in April 2001, when one of its fighter jets collided with an American EP-3 spy plane over international waters.
"They saw what the Chinese did with the EP-3," one senior administration official said.
The North Korean incident was "very deliberate," according to that official.
"If they get the U.S. to fire on them, that\'s \'proof\' an invasion is right around the corner," he said.
Whatever the motivation, U.S. officials agree that the incident shows Pyongyang is taking "bigger and bigger risks."
The RC-135S Cobra Ball aircraft is a modified version of the military C-135S cargo plane, which is based on Boeing\'s 707 commercial airliner. The aircraft are used to monitor areas where missiles are tested.
Last week, North Korea fired a short-range missile at sea during naval exercises, and Friday, Japanese newspapers reported that Pyongyang had tested a rocket booster for its Taepo Dong ballistic missiles at a launch site on the country\'s east coast in January.
In 1998, North Korea test-fired a missile that flew over Japan, raising tensions in the region.
Sunday\'s incident marked the first time in more than 30 years that North Korean aircraft have intercepted a U.S. plane, the sources said.
The previous interception occurred in 1969, when a North Korean fighter shot down a U.S. EC-121 reconnaissance aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing more than 30 U.S. airmen, according to a Pentagon official.
Topic: Fighters flew within 50 feet of Air Force surveillance jet (Read 653 times)