Plane Coming From North Korea Seized In Thailand

A plane flying from North Korea to Ukraine was seized, and it's crew detained, while making a pit stop in Thailand.

As it turns out, the plane's cargo was missiles, grenade launchers and other weapons topping out at a pretty enormous size.

From the story:

'Thai officials arrested the five-man crew on Friday after seizing the large cargo craft at Bangkok’s military airport, where the crew had landed to refuel. It was unclear why the crew would have chosen a close American ally for a refueling stop, rather than neighboring Myanmar, which has deep business and political ties to North Korea.

Thai officials said they intended to charge the crew members with possession of weapons of war. On Monday, a court here approved a 12-day detention for the five men.

But in their first interview since they were arrested, the crew members insisted that they did not know they had been transporting an arsenal of at least 30 tons of missiles, grenade launchers and other weapons, some of which the Thai authorities were still trying to identify.'

Now, the plane had other stops schedule in Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates. No one is sure yet where the final destination of the cargo was intended, but investigators are looking into that right now.

The plane, surrounded by security personnel, in Bangkok on Saturday.

I've already witnessed some skepticism from one person who inferred that the crew definitely knew what they were shipping. But let me play devil's advocate on that one.

Why on Aaron's Green Earth would the North Korean government tell this crew that they were carrying a ridiculous amount of weapons? This is super-secret North Korea. For all we know, the crew has held at gunpoint until agreeing to not even step into the cargo hold during the trip.

The crew members thought they were delivering oil drilling equipment, according to the story. And why would they question that? They're getting paid to deliver cargo. They're stopping in the oil-rich Middle East. It certainly would be a believable cargo load.

Does anyone really think this crew would purposely carry weapons for the North Koreans?

Now, looking at it from another angle, this crew was a bunch of dummies to be carrying North Korea's cargo anyway, but they might just be average Joe's trying to make a living. Knowing the regime running North Korea, I'm not yet ready to implicate this crew in anything.

We can assume all we want, but until they're proven guilty of knowing what they were carrying, I will continue to believe they weren't dumb enough to knowingly transport weapons for one of the most-hated countries on Earth.

What do you think? Are these guys just Grade-A dummies trying to earn a living? Or is there something more devious going on here???