South Korea air force jets mistakenly drop bombs on homes, injuring 15

Thomson Reuters

· Posted: Mar 06, 2025 7:24 AM EST | Last Updated: 9 hours ago

South Korean combatant jets mistakenly dropped 8 bombs connected a civilian territory connected Thursday, injuring 15 radical and damaging houses and a religion during subject exercises successful Pocheon, the Air Force and occurrence bureau said.

The occurrence bureau said successful a connection that 15 radical were wounded, including 2 who were earnestly hurt.

Pocheon is astir 40 kilometres  northeast of Seoul, adjacent the heavy militarized borderline with North Korea.

"There was a abrupt large roar of a combatant jet, past an detonation rang out.. When I went to the scene, determination were astir 4 houses that were halved from the damage, radical hurt," said Oh Moung-su, a 65-year-old resident.

"Dusk and fume roseate into the sky, h2o gushed retired of a pipe. People successful a conveyance going to a operation tract were injured -— immoderate of them couldn't adjacent get retired of the car. Another was extracurricular the car covering his eye."

South Korea's Air Force said 8 225-kilogram Mk82 bombs from 2 KF-16 jets fell extracurricular the shooting scope during associated live-fire exercises.

"We are atrocious for the harm caused by the abnormal driblet accident, and we privation the injured a speedy recovery," the Air Force said successful a statement.

The mishap was owed to a aviator entering incorrect coordinates, said a subject authoritative who declined to beryllium identified due to the fact that of the sensitivity of the matter. The authoritative said that the 2 jets past dropped 4 bombs each, with each of them detonating.

Authorities would suspend live-fire exercises until determination was a wide knowing of what went wrong, but the incidental would not impact large joint South Korean and U.S. subject exercises owed to statesman connected Monday, the authoritative said.

Residents successful the country have protested about the disturbance and imaginable information from adjacent grooming grounds for years.

Photographs from the country showed a location hollowed retired by the impact, shattered windows and a religion gathering strewn with debris.

Security camera footage aired connected section TV besides caught the moments starring up to the incident, with a pickup motortruck driving connected a tree-lined thoroughfare earlier the country is consumed by a ample explosion.

"The unthinkable has happened," said Pocheon metropolis politician Baeck Young-hyeun, who urged the authorities and subject to travel up with measures to forestall immoderate further civilian damage.

The defence ministry said earlier connected Thursday that South Korea and U.S. forces were holding their archetypal associated live-fire exercises successful Pocheon, linked to yearly subject drills owed to commencement adjacent week.

WATCH | Explosion rocks South Korean neighbourhood aft jets mistakenly driblet bombs: 

The Freedom Shield associated drills, which volition tally from March 10 to 20, purpose to fortify the readiness of the confederation for threats specified arsenic North Korea, the Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said earlier the accident.

This year's drills volition bespeak "lessons learned from caller equipped conflicts" and North Korea's increasing concern with Russia, it added.

"Our planners look crossed the globe and place the trends that are changing and we look astatine however we tin incorporated that into our exercises," Ryan Donald, a spokesperson for the United States Forces Korea (USFK), told a media briefing connected Thursday.

About 70 combined tract grooming sessions are scheduled for this year's exercise, said Lee Sung-jun, a spokesperson for Seoul's JCS.