According to reports, the KA-1 light aircraft’s two pilots made it out alive.
According to Seoul’s military, as reported by the Yonhap news agency, a South Korean KA-1 light aircraft crashed on Monday while it was attempting to intercept North Korean drones that had breached South Korean airspace. According to reports, both pilots were unharmed.
A source quoted by Yonhap said that the military found a lot of “unidentified objects” in the border area of Gyeonggi-do with North Korea. These objects were thought to be unmanned aerial vehicles.
The event was described as an “obvious provocation” by a Joint Chiefs of Staff officer who was speaking at a briefing. South Korea’s military “responded to an unknown track suspected to be a North Korean drone in the Gyeonggi area this morning,” the official added.
According to the military, drones flew over Gimpo, Ganghwa Island, and Paju while crossing the military demarcation line separating the two states.
One of the five drones, which had a wingspan of less than two metres, the official said, had flown as far as northern Seoul.
The incident provoked the deployment of fighters, helicopters, and other aircraft by the South Korean armed forces. According to a member of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, it is unclear whether the drones were carrying any weaponry.
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After seeing one drone, the South Korean military shot warning shots and told people more than once to leave the area.
Among the aircraft that were dispatched was the KA-1 light attack aircraft, which, for an undetermined cause, crashed in Seoul’s eastern Hoengseong County. There have been no reports of damage to residential buildings, according to the South Korean Air Force.
Due to the incident, all commercial flights had to be stopped temporarily at the international airports of Incheon and Gimpo.
Local media has released a video that appears to show a South Korean aircraft scrambling to intercept the drones.
A drone believed to be from North Korea was discovered in 2017 after a surveillance mission. The alleged UAV was discovered crashed near the boundary.
At the time, the THAAD US missile defence system was deployed in South Korea, according to Seoul’s military officials, and the drone was attempting to capture a picture of it.
A UN study from 2016 said that North Korea had 300 drones total, including combat, target, and reconnaissance drones. In 2017, the Korea Institute for National Unification, which is run by the government, said that Pyongyang has about 1,000 drones that could carry weapons.
The most recent occurrence occurs when tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at an all-time high. Days after US and South Korean jets performed joint exercises, Seoul said last week that North Korea had fired two ballistic missiles into the sea.
North Korea has claimed time and time again that its missile tests are in retaliation for the exercises, which Pyongyang views as a buildup to an assault.
