Air skirmish might have taken place on the day of Yeonpyeong conflict
Korean fighter jets, including F-15K, along with the fighters off from the U.S. aircraft carrier George Washington, flew high into the sky above the West Sea on Nov. 29 during the second day of South Korea-U.S. joint military drill.
The drill aims to shoot enemy aircraft in case of a war with the North.
In fact, on Nov. 23, the day of the North’s shelling on Yeonpyeong Island, an air fight was in the near verge of outbreak between the South and the North. Soon after the North’s artillery attack, South Korean four KF-16s and F-15s each made an emergency sortie. Around that time, a total of five North Korean MIG 23s were patrolling over the area near the five islands in border waters of the sea. It was a critical moment. If the South Korean fighters fired off against the military base of the North or the MIG-23s, a war couldn’t have been avoided.