I saw this article in The Telegraph as well as posted on other sites and thought to myself it could not possibly be true:
A picture of the supposed corporate jet that mistakenly landed in Pyongyang.
A delegation of corporate sponsors of next year’s winter Olympics in the South Korean city of PyeongChang was flown to the North Korean capital Pyongyang by mistake, it has emerged.
According to the Around the Rings website the pilot of the corporate jet made a mistake when he entered the flight plan into the aircraft’s navigation system.
It steered the aircraft 250 miles further north than its intended destination.
The plane was carrying eight passengers from Beijing who were on a reconnaissance trip.
Bemused flight control staff at the North Korean capital allowed the Gulfstream and its passengers to land before the plane was ushered to a remote part of the airport.
“We stopped on the tarmac. The pilot announced the error. We were petrified about what might happen,” one of the delegation said later.
“He told us to stay seated, stay calm. A cabin steward popped the door open and we could see armed men in uniform facing the plane.”
With the aid of a translator, the pilot apologised profusely. The passengers were told to disembark while their luggage was inspected.
After inspecting the collection of Olympic badges, which were intended to be delivered to PyeongChang, the North Koreans were satisfied that the landing was completely inadvertent and the plane was allowed to carry on to South Korea. [The Telegraph]
This story just sounded to unbelievable to me so I checked out the source posting from the Around the Rings website. The article is from an anonymous source and posted on April 1st, which is April’s Fools Day. This leads me to believe this is a hoax posting.
What gets me about this is that major news outlets were passing this around because of the sensational headline and did not even bother to confirm its authenticity. This is the world of fake news journalism we now live in.
