Correction at 16:00 KST: Inaccurate claims Kim Jong Un’s usage of the An-148 aircraft have been corrected.

A rare Air Koryo flight appearing to depart from Pyongyang was detected on Wednesday, one of just a handful of flights since North Korean airspace was effectively closed amid COVID-19 measures.

Flight JS671 was spotted for a few minutes flying northeast between 10:11 and 10:14 KST, FlightRadar24 data showed on Wednesday, though no departure nor arrival airport was contained in the Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) signal.

The unusual flight number actually represented the plane’s tail number, P-671, indicating it to be one of Air Koryo’s two compact Antonov An-148 passenger jets.

As part of its battle against the virus, DPRK airspace was closed to international flights from February 1, with a roundtrip flight to Vladivostok for foreign diplomats on March 9 representing the only officially-announced exception.

But Wednesday’s movement followed a similar path and pattern of an earlier and previously unreported Air Koryo flight occurring on April 23, which notably used the same aircraft and flight number.

It is therefore possible that the two flight detections represented Air Koryo aircraft making domestic movements.

While Air Koryo continues to schedule its regular flight program on its website and on flight tracker listings, the actual flights have not been picked up by data-collecting ground stations, indicating that the airlines’ planes continue to be grounded.

If the flights were domestic, they would most likely be shuttles between Pyongyang and either Samjiyon (near Mount Paektu) or Chongjin’s Orang airport, two of the most common destinations in the northeast of the country.

Such flights are seldom spotted by foreign ADS-B ground stations, as they travel deep inside DPRK territory.

South Korean media on Wednesday speculated that the rare flight could indicate a movement by Kim Jong Un, possibly to observe SLBM tests on the DPRK’s east coast, but without providing evidence.

Kim has flown domestically in an An-148 at least once, when shown piloting landing in a KCTV documentary.

Though it may be unrelated, the timing of the prior April 23 flight in the An-148 could provide insight into Kim’s whereabouts during his long period out of the public eye in April, when outside observers speculated on his health status.

It is possible other domestic flights that have avoided ADS-B tracking technology may be occurring inside the country.

Edited by James Fretwell and Chad O’Carroll