U.S. Military Copter Down in North Korea

A U.S. helicopter crashed in North Korean territory this morning, and Pyongyang immediately said its troops had shot it down.

Initial reports from Seoul indicated that the two crew members survived the crash. It was not immediately clear whether they were in North Korean hands.

A U.S. military spokesman in Seoul said the U.S. Army OH-58 scout helicopter landed three miles north of the Demilitarized Zone near Wontong in the North’s Kangwon province.

“We believe there were two crew members on board. It seems they landed not of their own will but due to aviational error,” he said.

The helicopter was on a “check ride” flight from a base in South Korea, a routine flight that can involve crew proficiency training or maintenance, a Pentagon spokesman said.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said he had no confirmation of North Korea’s claim that it had shot down the helicopter.

“We are listing it as an emergency landing. Our information is preliminary and partial,” Bacon said.

He said he had no immediate information about the two crew members aboard the helicopter.

“The reports are obviously preliminary, and we are investigating to find more information as fast as possible,” he said.

A U.S. official said American forces lost radar contact with the helicopter at 11:15 a.m. today local time.

He declined to provide details of any possible U.S. response but said there had been no movement of U.S. troops or ships to the region.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency, in a report monitored in Tokyo, declared that “the helicopter was brought down at one shot in the area of our side in a self-defensive measure of the anti-air gunners of the Korean People’s Army, who were vigilantly guarding the air space of our socialist Motherland.”

The South Korean Defense Ministry said the helicopter had been flying near the border when it entered northern air space for reasons that were not immediately clear.

Pyongyang’s KCNA reported that “a helicopter of the enemy illegally flew deep into the air above the Ipho-ri area of Kumgang County in Kangwon province at 10:45 a.m., crossing the military demarcation line in the eastern sector of the front.”

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified military source as saying that apparently neither of the two crewmen were injured. It did not say, however, where the crewmen were.

Yonhap said the helicopter crash-landed about three miles north of the northern sector of the 2.5-mile-wide DMZ that has separated the capitalist South and the Communist North since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

The OH-58 is a light helicopter that can be used for reconnaissance or attack purposes. The two-seater craft was on a routine reconnaissance mission, Yonhap said.

About 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea under a mutual defense treaty.

Times staff writer Art Pine in Washington contributed to this report.