A North Korean Ilyushin Il-62M jet en route to Conakry Airport in Guinea crashes into the Fouta Djallon mountains in Guinea-Bissau, killing all 23 people on board.
The Ilyushin Il-62 (Russian: -62; NATO reporting name: Classic) is a Soviet long-range narrow-body jetliner conceived in 1960 by Ilyushin. As successor to the popular turboprop Il-18 and with capacity for almost 200 passengers and crew, the Il-62 was the world's largest jet airliner when first flown in 1963. One of four pioneering long-range designs (the others being Boeing 707, Douglas DC-8, and Vickers VC10), it was the first such type to be operated by the Soviet Union and a number of allied nations.
The Il-62 entered Aeroflot civilian service on 15 September 1967 with an inaugural passenger flight from Moscow to Montreal, and remained the standard long-range airliner for the Soviet Union (and later, Russia) for several decades. It was the first Soviet pressurised aircraft with non-circular cross-section fuselage and ergonomic passenger doors, and the first Soviet jet with six-abreast seating (the turboprop Tu-114 shared this arrangement) and international-standard position lights.
Over 30 nations operated the Il-62 with over 80 examples exported and others having been leased by Soviet-sphere and several Western airlines. The Il-62M variant became the longest-serving model in its airliner class (average age of examples in service as of 2016 is over 32 years). Special VIP (salon) and other conversions were also developed and used as head-of-state transport by some 14 countries. However, because it is expensive to operate compared to newer generation airliners, the number in service was greatly reduced after the 2008 Great Recession. The Il-62's successors include the wide-bodied Il-86 and Il-96, both of which were made in much smaller numbers and neither of which was widely exported.
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and Tumen rivers, and South Korea to the south at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. The country's western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eastern border is defined by the Sea of Japan. North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. Pyongyang is the capital and largest city.
In 1910, Korea was annexed by the Empire of Japan. In 1945, after the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, Korea was divided into two zones along the 38th parallel, with the north occupied by the Soviet Union and the south occupied by the United States. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948, separate governments were formed: the socialist and Soviet-aligned DPRK in the north, and the capitalist, Western-aligned Republic of Korea in the south. The Korean War began in 1950, with an invasion by North Korea, and lasted to 1953. The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire and established a demilitarized zone (DMZ), but no formal peace treaty has ever been signed.
According to Article 1 of the state constitution, North Korea is an "independent socialist state". It holds elections, though they have been described by independent observers as sham elections, as North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship, with a comprehensive cult of personality around the Kim dynasty. The Workers' Party of Korea, led by a member of the ruling family, is the dominant party and leads the Democratic Front for the Reunification of Korea, the sole legal political movement.
According to Article 3 of the constitution, Juche is the official ideology of North Korea. The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises and collectivized farms. Most services—such as healthcare, education, housing, and food production—are subsidized or state-funded. From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 people, and the population continues to suffer from malnutrition.North Korea follows Songun, or "military first" policy, for its Korean People's Army. It possesses nuclear weapons, and is the country with the second highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 7.769 million active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel, or approximately 30% of its population. Its active duty army of 1.28 million soldiers is the fourth-largest in the world, consisting of 5% of its population. A 2014 inquiry by the United Nations into abuses of human rights in North Korea concluded that "the gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world," with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch holding similar views. The North Korean government denies these abuses. In addition to being a member of the United Nations since 1991, North Korea is also a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, G77, and the ASEAN Regional Forum.