Chinese passenger jet carrying 220 people in near miss with North Korean missile

A China Southern Airlines aircraft carrying 220 passengers passed through the trajectory of a rocket launched seven minutes earlier by North Korea, a South Korean official said.

Flight CZ628 was headed to Shenyang in Liaoning province after taking off from Narita airport in Japan when North Korea fired the missile at 4.17pm on Tuesday, South Korean defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.

The jet was flying over international waters at an altitude of 10,000 metres at 4.24pm when it crossed the trajectory of the missile, which reached a height of 20 kilometres, Kim said.

"The rocket could have hit the plane on its way down," Kim said. "North Korea had not given any warning. It was an unexpected and immoral act that goes against international norms."

He said the ministry had notified China through "certain channels" of the closeness of the trajectory of the missile and the passenger jet.

The North Korea missile launches coincide with joint US-South Korean military drills that the Kim Jong-un regime has denounced as a rehearsal for war. The missile launches began on February 21, disrupting a period of easing tensions between the two Koreas highlighted by the first reunions in more than three years of families divided by the 1950-1953 war.