Ministry of National Defense Republic of Korea

Korean Army, honored for searching for missing Malaysian airplane

Korea maritime search support unit has been thrown into search and rescue operation for the missing Malaysian airplane, showing superior mission capability.

“It has been 25 days that the unit has carried out an intensive search operation. Due to the effort we have made so far, we found about 20 items of wreckage of the airplane assumed to be missing,” a NOC official said on April 7.

The support unit, consisting of the Navy’s P-3C maritime patrol aircraft and the Air Force’s C-130 transport aircraft, arrived at Subang airbase in Malaysia on March 15 and started a mission the next day. According to information that the final location of the missing airplane was southwest of Australia, the unit was re-deployed to the Royal Australian Air Force Base Pearce on March 25 and continued the search mission.  

It achieved good results finding 20 areas of wreckage assumed to be the missing airplane, 950 miles off the base on March 28 and 30.

Prime ministers of Australia, Tony Abbott, and Malaysia, Najib Tun Razak, visited the Pearce base to encourage soldiers there and praised our support unit’s outstanding performance.

At the meeting with Captain Lee Jin-yong, the chief of maritime search support unit, the two prime ministers said, “This search operation would be an example of a combined operation the multinational armies closely conduct together. We’d like to show our gratitude and honor all the sailors of the Korean support unit who put their heart and soul into the mission.”

By Byeong-No, Yun < trylover@dema.mil.kr >
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