From North Korea fighter pilot to Embry-Riddle professor: Remembering Kenneth Rowe

DAYTONA BEACH − No Kum-Sok’s dramatic escape from North Korea by flying his MiG-15 fighter jet to a U.S. air base in South Korea in 1953 made him an international celebrity.

He wound up shaking hands with Vice President Richard Nixon, explaining how his Soviet-built fighter jet operated to legendary American test pilots Chuck Yeager and Tom Collins, and appeared on television shows, including “To Tell the Truth” and “Today.” He also frequently spoke on Voice of America radio broadcasts.

But after moving to Daytona Beach with his family in 1983, No Kum-Sok who changed his name to Kenneth Rowe, enjoyed a quiet life as a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He taught aircraft engineering for 17 years until his retirement and remained in the area after that with his wife Clara.

Rowe died on Dec. 26 at his Daytona Beach home, surrounded by family, just a couple weeks shy of his 91st birthday.

“He seemed to like Daytona Beach quite a lot,” said his daughter Bonnie Rowe. “He liked the warm weather and he thought the people were nice.”

‘Wanted to be a regular American’

Kenneth Rowe’s paid obituary in The Daytona Beach News-Journal once again made him the subject of international headlines, including articles in both The New York Times and Washington Post.

“He wasn’t seeking to be a celebrity,” said Bonnie Rowe. “He wanted to be a regular American.”

Retired Embry-Riddle professor Bob Oxley remembers his former colleague as “an upstanding guy. He was open and honest. He was in favor of the kind of values Americans are supposed to have: freedom of speech and a tolerance of other points of view.”

Laksh Narayanaswami currently teaches aerospace engineering at Embry-Riddle where he has been a professor since the late 1980s. He remembers Rowe most for his humor. “He laughed a lot. He was down to earth.”

Kenneth Rowe in 1996 recounted his life story in an autobiography titled “A MiG-15 to Freedom,” which he co-wrote with another Embry-Riddle professor, the late J. Roger Osterholm. His escape was also the subject of another book, “The Great Leader and the…