North Korea “appears close to completing its first airborne early warning aircraft,” a significant upgrade for its air force, said U.S.-based research website 38 North, citing commercial satellite imagery.
Airborne early warning, or AEW, aircraft use radars to detect incoming missiles, as well as other aircraft and warships at long ranges. They are also used for aerial reconnaissance over the ground and the sea.
38 North, a research platform at the Stimson Center think tank, analyzed an image taken at Pyongyang’s Sunan International Airport by Airbus’s Pléiades Neo satellite on March 3, 2025.
The image shows a Russian-made Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft parked alongside a maintenance hangar “with a large radome mounted on top of the fuselage.” A radome is the cover for radar antennae, like on the AEW aircraft.
“The radome has a distinctive triangle design on top, similar to what is seen on some Chinese AEW aircraft, but not used on U.S. or Russian aircraft,” 38 North said, adding that this could indicate support or influence from China.
According to the website, the North Korean flag carrier Air Koryo has three such IL-76 transport airplanes and the military began working on this one in November 2023 to convert it to an AEW.
North Korea’s secretive official channels have not said anything about this project.
Big leap or baby step for North Korea?
Pyongyang until now didn’t have any early warning aircraft and some analysts think the new development is a “big step for the North Korean air force.”
“North Korea’s air force is comprised mainly of obsolete Russian fighters such as MIG-17s and MIG-21s so having a modern AEW aircraft is definitely good for their air operations,” said Jyh-Shyang Sheu, a military analyst at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei.
Sheu told Radio Free Asia that in his opinion the project was supported by Russia rather than China.
“The Il-76 is a good platform for this purpose as the Russian AEW plane Beriev A-50 is also based on Il-76,” Sheu said.
RELATED STORIES
North Korea’s increasingly accurate missiles raise concerns
North Korea likely to produce drones with Russian support this year: report
North Korea vows to ‘step-up’ action against US as aircraft carrier arrives in South
The new AEW aircraft reflects North Korea’s efforts to modernize its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, according to Alexander Lord, lead Europe-Eurasia analyst at Sibylline, a U.K.-based geopolitical risk consultancy.
“This could indicate Pyongyang is seeking to enhance its technological cooperation with both China and Russia, and it will allow North Korean forces to more closely monitor U.S. and South Korean military movements,” Lord said.
As Pyongyang and Moscow strengthen their military cooperation, Russia has reportedly been deploying North Korean ballistic missiles in the war in Ukraine, giving the North an opportunity to test its weapons in real-life combat.
“It does appear to be an airborne early warning type radar on top of the airplane, along the lines of the U.S./NATO E-3 Sentry or the Chinese KJ-2000, which is also based on the IL-76 platform,” another analyst, Thomas Shugart, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank, told RFA.
“Given that there’s only one, as well as the importance of systems integration to make these sort of aircraft work, I’d say this is still very much baby steps on North Korea’s part,” Shugart said.
“I won’t lose any sleep over it,” he added.
Edited by Mike Firn.