Sunday, November 15, 2015

North Korea's Air Force & Airports

NOTE: Scroll to the bottom to download a Google Earth KMZ file of all airfields and heliports.


Introduction

The Korean People's Army Air Force was created in 1947 and is one of five branches of the Korean People's Army. Today it has around 1,000 aircraft with 110,000 personnel. Given the military primacy system (Songun) of North Korea, we might as well consider domestic and military aviation controls as one and the same.

The KPAAF is currently divided into six divisions: 1st Air Combat Command (HQ at Kaechon), 2nd Air Combat Command (HQ at Toksan), 3rd Air Combat Command (HQ at Hwangju), 5th Air Transport Division (HQ at Taechon), 6th Air Transport Division (HQ at Sondok), and the 8th Air Training Division (HQ at Orang). These are all controlled by the central Air Defense and Combat Command which is headquartered in Chunghwa, Pyongyang.

(As always, click on the pictures to see a larger view.) 


Combat air divisions consist of four to nine air regiments, service and support units, and have approximately 160-300 aircraft.
They are organized into a headquarters and division command post, three to six fighter regiments, one bomber regiment, one to two helicopter regiments, five to seven anti-aircraft rocket brigades (SAM brigades), communications center, radar regiment, nuclear-chemical defense battalion, engineering battalion, transportation battalion, guard battalion, and a maintenance and repair unit.

The overall combat readiness of the air force is low, ranging from 50% to 70%. Due to ongoing fuel shortages and lack of repair equipment/parts, training flight time is usually less than an hour and generally consists of take-off's and landings.

Airfields

The country has a total of 99 airfields and heliports. There are 12 main airfields, these include the six divisional headquarters, Pyongyang International Airport, Wonsan Airport, and others. There are 14 highway strips which are widened lengths of road used to serve as emergency runways in the event of war or other crisis. Of all the airfields, 20 are basic grass landing strips, 33 are paved, and 19 are heliports or single helipads. Ten of the known airstrips that still exist are also either fully abandoned or severely neglected. One thing I find curious, is that Chagang Province only has one airport, at Manpo. Chagang is a key military manufacturing region with otherwise limited infrastructure (it only has two domestic access points by rail).

This shows the locations of all the airfields. The plane icons are for planes, helicopters for heliports, and the divisional headquarters are shown larger.


Improvements

Over the last few years there have been a number of improvements/expansions made to existing airports, and a few new ones have been constructed as well.

Located about 12 miles from the heart of Pyongyang, North Korea's only official international airport (Pyongyang-Sunan International) underwent renovations and the expansion of its terminal.

The following pictures are of the terminal before and after primary construction was over.


Another facility in Pyongyang to undergo improvements was the VIP heliport in downtown. Situated along the bank of the Taedong River and among elite neighborhoods, the original heliport was completely demolished and new one was built next to the old site.

Former heliport
New site

Moving across the country to the east coast city Wonsan, we find North Korea's newest (as of yet unofficial) international airport - Wonsan Airport. With Kim Jong-un's approval, starting in 2013 the airport underwent an extensive remodeling with the intent of enabling the development of a planned "Wonsan-Mount Kumgang Tourist Zone". The airport project is estimated to have cost $200 million. If true, that would represent over 1% of the country's entire economic output. For some perspective, 1% of America's GDP would be $170 billion.

Each year North Korea receives around 100,000 visitors, Wonsan's new capacity is 1.2 million. The original plan for Pyongyang's expansion was to accommodate 12 million!

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the before and after.


There have been two new airports built in the last few years. There's a new Kumgang Airport (which is still not operational) that I wrote about in March 2015, and also in 2015, North Korea built a small paved airfield next to the International Friendship Exhibition.

Here is the unused Kumgang Airport which replaced the grass Kumgang landing strip.


Google Earth File

I have been able to pull from different sources (not to mention the fact I've literally looked at every square mile of North Korea) and was able to put together a Google Earth KMZ file. It contains the locations of all 93 existing current and former airfields/heliports, along with a visual count of all aircraft seen, and additional information/links for certain airfields. To explore the file you will need have Google Earth.

To automatically download the file from my Google site "AccessNorthKorea", just click THIS link.
To check out the site first (not much there yet) you can visit it here. The file name is "AirportsAirbases-updated-12-1-15.kmz".

Further Reading

Korean People's Air Force, Wikipedia article
North Korea Air Bases, Federation of American Scientists
Korean People's Air Force, Wikileaks document



--Jacob Bogle, 11/15/2015
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Sunday, September 27, 2015

Taedong River Pollution

(Taedong River as seen from the Juche Tower in Pyongyang. Source: Commons)

The Taedong River is North Korea's second longest river and it flows through the heart of the country, bisecting Pyongyang and eventually discharging into the Yellow Sea. Despite serving as the main source of drinking water for the nation's capital of nearly 3 million, the river is heavily polluted.

North Korea has adopted ten major environmental laws (as of 2005) and, as in many areas, pays lip service to environmental protection. However, the country has one of the world's worst environmental records. Even though the destruction of the environment, like deforestation, has directly contributed to famine, flooding, and loss of life, the country's economic desperation has led them to continually ignore the environment in favor of industrial and agricultural activity. According to CSR Asia, by 2005 North Korea was releasing 10.8 million tons of air pollutants.

The Taedong estuary is the recipient of the bulk of the pollution released into the river. This is made even worse by the West Sea Barrage (completed in 1986) which prevents natural and adequate removal of pollutants. And thanks to a lack of necessary water treatment plants, the river has "an average chemical oxygen demand of 2.15 ppm in 2008, falling behind the environmental standard of 3 ppm." Industries along the river also dump as much as 30,000 cubic meters (over 1 million cubic feet) of polluted water a day directly into the Taedong. The estuary isn't the only place where river water ends up. A massive system of irrigation canals instituted in 1989 means that thousands of acres of farm land receive water from the Taedong, with crops (and eventually the humans that eat them) taking up the various toxins left behind.

North Korea's two largest coal-fired electrical plants lie along the Taedong. The Pukchang (also spelled Bukchang) Thermal Power Plant, located 6 miles east of the Kaechon internment camp in South Pyongan Province, is one of eight major coal-fired electrical plants in the country. It has a capacity of 1.6 GW (twice the capacity of America's Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant) and is the largest of North Korea's power plants. However, the reality on the ground is that Pukchang's output may be less than one third of it's designed capacity. Regardless of production, the plant still releases vast amounts of pollution into the air (over 6 million tons of CO2) and river.

From 2005 to 2007 the country embarked on a new construction program: cut off a 3.4 mile long portion of the Taedong River and turn it into a massive pool of toxic sludge.


Previously, waste from the Pukchang plant was diverted into two smaller bends of the river, seen as the flat areas at the top and center-right of the loop. These coal ash basins were not fully separated from the river and during heavy rains pollutants would wash into the Taedong. This new, much larger waste basin was created when a neck of land (left side of image) was cut, the rock being used to build makeshift retention dams.

Sludge deposits seen filling up the old river channel.

Dam failure is a well-known threat in North Korea and many smaller earthen dams (like this new retention dam) are routinely overtopped, particularly during heavy rains. Not only would that release large quantities of surface waste into the river, but it further weakens the dam and can cut channels into it, making future failure easier. Beyond the risks associated with overtopping, coal ash sludge contains large amounts of toxic materials and heavy metals. Lead, cadmium, arsenic, and even radioactive thorium and uranium - which occur naturally - are concentrated during the coal burning process and are then discharged into this basin. Lacking adequate barriers, this material will slowly seep into the river and result in a continual source of pollution for years to come.

In a touch of irony during the construction of this new basin, a small hydroelectric generating station was also built. It's located where the land was cut and takes advantage of the river's new, slightly shorter course.

Additional Reading
Inside North Korea's Environmental Collapse, by Phil McKenna, NOVA/PBS 2013

--Jacob Bogle, 9/27/15 (updated on June 30, 2017)
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