Royal Australian Air Force F-111 sinks North Korean Drug Ship (VIDEO)

Live Leak ^ | 19 AUG 2007 | Live Leak

[radar101]

After being caught trying to smuggle drugs into Australia the Pong Su was sunk by two 2000-pound (900 kg) laser-guided bombs dropped from an RAAF F-111 aircraft. The deliberate destruction of the freighter was said to deliver a strong message to international drug smuggling rings that the Australian Federal Government would take all measures necessary to stop illegal drug importation.

[chiefqc]

Kind of ruins your entire day, maybe they should have stayed home.

[HardStarboard]

Some of our weepie hadwringers in Congress need to take a lesson in Aussie style grit!

Their approach is obviously, fix the problem and clean up the mess, if any, later. The military is for fixing the problem, the diplomatic corps is for cleaning up later!

Good plan!

[ichabod1]

ty

[naturalman1975]

Yes, the ship had been evacuated - or more accurately, this was the destruction of evidence after all criminal proceedings had been completed, and so took place considerably after the capture of the ship.

Basic timeline.

April 16, 2003. Police observed the Pong Su close to shore near Lorne, Victoria. They followed two crew members from the ship to a nearby hotel.

April 17, 2003. These two crew members were arrested and found to be in possession of 50kg (over 100 pounds) of pure heroin. The beach was searched and the body of a third crew member was found - apparently he had drowned when his boat capsised. Two more crew members were found ashore and arrested. The Australian government ordered the Pong Su into harbour, and it chose to make a run for it. Operation Sorbet begins as the Royal Australian Navy gives chase.

April 21, 2003. Australian Army Special Operations Group soldiers storm the ship via a helicopter landing, and take it and its crew into custody. Approximately 30 crew members are arrested including one who is a former senior North Korean diplomat, possibly a North Korean intelligence officer. All are charged with narcotics trafficking.

May, 2003. A further 75kg of heroin is found on the beach.

March 5th, 2004. Charges are dropped against 27 crew members on the grounds there is insufficient evidence to proceed against them. Their deportation is ordered and they are transferred to immigration detention, where they will be held for three months being questioned.

June 24th, 2004. The 27 crew members are deported.

August 2005. The trial of the four remaining senior crew members (the political officer, Captain, First Officer, and Engineer) begins. All plead Not Guilty.

5th March, 2006. All are acquitted on the grounds of insufficient evidence, and they are deported.

23rd March, 2006. The RAAF destroys the Pong Su in a bombing run. The purpose of this was to send a message concerning drug trafficking, but it also served as a useful training exercise - bombing targets is fine, but being able to occasionally practice on a real ship is useful.

[SJSAMPLE]

More props for the F-111.

It saw more combat than the F-14 ever did and continues to serve magnificently.

[Jason_b]

"One of the few western countries that hasn’t been sissified."

....well....for the most part. They did pass gun control a few years back.

[El Gato]

April 17, 2003. These two crew members were arrested and found to be in possession of 50kg (over 100 pounds) of pure heroin. The beach was searched and the body of a third crew member was found - apparently he had drowned when his boat capsised. Two more crew members were found ashore and arrested. The Australian government ordered the Pong Su into harbour, and it chose to make a run for it. Operation Sorbet begins as the Royal Australian Navy gives chase.

Right about here is where the F-111s should have been sent in.

April 21, 2003. Australian Army Special Operations Group soldiers storm the ship via a helicopter landing, and take it and its crew into custody. Approximately 30 crew members are arrested including one who is a former senior North Korean diplomat, possibly a North Korean intelligence officer. All are charged with narcotics trafficking.

Although bagging the "former" diplomat was a nice bonus.

[dighton]

RAAF F-111 performs at Wanaka, NZ

[A.A. Cunningham]

Australia Uses Fighter Plane to Sink Drug Ship

[Mr Inviso]

The Aussies invented a way to NOT have to replace the wing pivot so often, that I havent seen anything about the USAF having. Apparently their way of fixing it, you dont have to mess with it again. They also have added a bunch of off the shelf electronic stuff that gives it new capabilities. There’s a fair amount of material out there about it, because their MoD is apparently as dumb as our Pentagon is when it comes to making upgrade vs new purchase decisions.

The best one I saw was upgrading engines to the same ones the F-22 uses. From what I saw it was a big nothing cost and engineering-wise, and made for a HUGE increase in capability.

[Mr Rogers]

Interesting. I wish I knew more. I hated F-111s in the vanilla days, but AMP and PS were fantastic upgrades. I was in the F model until they retired, then the EFs...and they had the best avionics of their day.

Unfortunately, as you’ve noted, our DoD cares about new stuff and ignores the capability gains even modest upgrades could give us.

Thanks for the info!

[Red6]

The Aussies are one of the few allies that have “balls.”

[endthematrix]

of course I’m no fan of having the US defending the operation as compliant with the UN Charter. Get US out of the UN and the UN out of the US!