A large flock of birds or a North Korean midget submarine?
That is one of the questions surrounding the inexplicable sinking of the ROK Navy's patrol ship, the 1,200-ton Cheonan, off Baengnyeong Island in the West Sea (Yellow Sea) last Friday night.
As things stand now, just an hour after an explosion on the Cheonan broke it into two before it sank, its sister frigate Sokcho fired 130 rounds from its 76mm main canon.
This took place at 10:57 p.m.
The Navy and the Defense Ministry maintained that the shooting took place as part of a standard procedure following a large object detected on the frigate's radars.
Later, it explained that it was a flock of birds that duped radar operators as an unidentified object.
Conspiracy theorists contend is that it was a North Korean vessel that infiltrated South Korean waters on a mission to damage a Navy vessel and that the Navy is trying to cover this up because of fear of heightened tension rising between the two Koreas.
This theory is lent credence as eight years ago, the South Korean Navy won a victory in a skirmish with North Korea and, considering military tendencies to get even with the foes, it can’t be ruled out that it was a North Korean attempt to score a South Korean kill.
The Ministry of National Defense said Thursday it did not detect any North Korean submarines near the western sea border last Friday night when the Cheonan naval ship was hit by an unexplained explosion.
In a 27-page news release, the ministry reiterated the target to which the nearby Sokcho frigate was firing after the Cheonan sank has been found to be a group of birds, following an analysis of Sokcho's radar and electrical optics tracking systems.
Right after the incident occurred around 9:20 p.m. in waters off Baengnyeong Island near the sea border with North Korea, the Navy's 2nd Fleet Command directed the Sokcho, which had been conducting a mission 49 kilometers south of the Cheonan, to move up to the scene after raising a security alert, it said.
The Sokcho met a ``fast-moving'' target, near the island, toward the North 10:55 p.m. and recognized it as an enemy at that time. Under the direction of the fleet command, the ship started shooting 76mm cannons toward the target, 9.3 kilometers away.
The 76mm gun has a range of 12 kilometers and the ship's 40mm gun has a range of 8 kilometers. That's why the Sokcho ship chose the 76mm cannon attack, said the ministry.
But the ship's radar later showed that the target had split and united into one repeatedly, a move seen to be that of a flock of birds, it said.
As for possible moves by North Korean submarines near the NLL at the time of the sinking, the ministry said there had been no such activities.
``We didn't detect any movement by North Korean submarines near the NLL (when the Cheonan sank), and there is a low possibility of North Korea's dispatch of submarines to the South,'' said Rear Adm. Lee Ki-shik of the information and operations bureau at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
``But we're still open to all possibilities, including a submarine intrusion, and are investigating the cause of the accident in a scientific and objective manner,'' Lee said.
gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr
pss@koreatimes.co.kr
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