Spectators Balcony (Spotters Corner)If you're not a professional pilot but want to discuss issues about the job, this is the best place to loiter. You won't be moved on by 'security' and there'll be plenty of experts to answer any questions.
They all will. There will be too many minders with them for any of them to even think about aslyum. Plus what will happen to their families back home if they tried it on.
HEATHROW DIRECTOR should be suitably chastised and given a week in the stocks for asking such a sly loaded question. Does it matter who the athletes of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea elect to fly with ? The U.K. should be thanking them for even bothering to come considering the colour they will add to what looks like being a rather unspectacular event. As for defecting you can forget that, these athletes are North Korea's elite and they dont see the grubby west as some golden utopia.
Amazing how media political outporings are soaked up by the sponge like brains of the uninformed.
O.P.
Last edited by Ocean Person; 25th Jul 2012 at 07:59.
Not that I wish to speak for HD, but I'd wager that his question was more to do with the rare as a hen's tooth chance of seeing an Air Kyoro IL-62 in the UK. This is after all, 'spotter's corner' within PPRuNe
To balance things, mr ocean's missive is most likely true, being that the athletes will have received and experienced the best that NK has to offer bearing in mind that they are the friendly face of the regime. It's just a shame that the millions of other citizens within are left with dust and promises....A bit like the UK then
On reflection I may been a bit hard on the Director and owe him an apology. I was somewhat irritated by the inane and stupid remarks that followed his question. Hopefully he will accept my " absit invidia ".
As for defecting you can forget that, these athletes are North Korea's elite and they dont see the grubby west as some golden utopia.
Which translated into plain English means: "Their families are not starving, unlike most of the civilian population, hence they are not desperate enough to defect". Besides the fact that they have surely all been hand-picked to be highly coercible, by threats to their families and similar measures. You can be sure there will be not one single athlete who stands to lose nothing by defecting.
Some East Germans got to travel to the West way back then too, but only a small portion of them did defect. I'm sure Korean authorities can be even more persuasive than the former Stasi.
To get back on topic, I don't think that North Korea considered even for a second to schedule a direct flight to the West. The athletes might not be at high risk of defection, but what if the whole crew did defect upon arrival? That would make getting the plane back a bit tricky.
The North Koreans did manage two flights to MAN with IL62 P-882 in connection with the World Student Games in Sheffield in the early 1990s. On both occasions the crew managed to stay with their aircraft and return home, so set a precedent. I doubt the crew ever considered defection, knowing the consequences for their extended families left back home.
The only time I have seen one of their machines. And probably ever will. Legion though the attractions of Pyongyang are, I can't see me bothering.
