The crews of at least three commercial airlines reported sighting what is believed to have been the intercontinental ballistic missile fired by North Korea on November 29.

The captain of a Korean Air flight approaching South Korea's Incheon Airport from San Francisco reported to ground control that he had seen a flash about one hour after the missile was launched from a site to the north of Pyongyang, Yonhap reported.

Four minutes later, the pilot of another Korean Air aircraft crossing the Sea of Japan inbound from Los Angeles reported a similar flash of light.

An official of the company said both aircraft landed without further incident and neither jet was in danger because the trajectory of the missile was sufficiently far away from their flight paths.

The crew of a Cathay Pacific flight in Japanese airspace reported a similar burst of light in the pre-dawn skies over the ocean.

A spokesman for the company told the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper that the crew of flight CX893 reported, "Be advised, we witnessed the DPRK missile blow up and fall apart near our current location".