Latest news with #LeeYoung-su
![[Editorial] Tighten discipline](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fall-logos-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fkoreaherald.com.png&w=48&q=75){kind=small}
Korea Herald
19-03-2025
- Korea Herald
[Editorial] Tighten discipline
UAV-helicopter collision comes after accidental fighter bombing A South Korean military drone crashed into a helicopter parked at an airfield in Gyeonggi Province. This accident occurred 11 days after Korean fighter jets accidentally bombed civilian homes in a village in Pocheon, near the inter-Korean border, on March 6. An Israeli-made Heron reconnaissance uncrewed aerial vehicle belonging to an Army aviation group collided with the parked helicopter while landing on a military airfield in Yangju, Gyeonggi Province, on Monday. The crash sparked a fire, and both aircraft were destroyed. The drone in question is one of three Herons that the Korean military possesses. One crashed in November due to North Korean interference with its GPS. Another is under repair overseas. The other was completely burned in Monday's crash so a disruption of reconnaissance operations near the western border with North Korea has become inevitable. Fortunately, there were no casualties, but property damage is estimated to exceed 23 billion won ($15.8 million). If the Heron had crashed into a civilian area or collided with a helicopter in the air, there would have been casualties. The accident is not something to be viewed lightly. The Army suspects the crash was due to inexperience in operating the drone and a mechanical malfunction. Thorough investigations and measures to prevent recurrence must follow. On March 6, two KF-16 fighter jets of the Air Force mistakenly dropped eight bombs on the village area of Nogok-ri, Idong-myeong, Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, during a Korea-US joint military drill. Thirty-one people were injured and over 140 private homes were damaged. The accidental bombing is said to have happened because one pilot of the two-jet team entered incorrect coordinates for the planned target. Even through the exercise was live-fire, no one in the Air Force noticed that the wrong coordinates were entered into the system. The pilot who flew with the wrong coordinates should have made a proper visual check of the strike point one last time before dropping the bombs, but he did not. The other pilot was found to have simply followed the first pilot's lead in order to complete their mission of a simultaneous bombing, even though he re-entered the correct coordinates in his plane later due to file transfer error. An initial investigation revealed laxity in the system for reporting accidents and that mistakes were made in entering the coordinates. If the accident had occurred not in training but in a real war, there would have been much greater damage and likely loss of life. Regarding these accidental bombings, Air Force Chief of Staff Lee Young-su vowed to make painstaking efforts to correct bad practices in the Air Force. The drone that crashed into the helicopter belongs to the Army, but correcting wrongs is not a task limited to the Air Force. It is a task for the whole military. They will have to take these accidents as a chance to root out lax practices. An array of human and technical factors are under investigation to find out the causes of the two accidents, but the essence of the problem lies in inadequate discipline. The laxity of discipline is probably not unrelated to the precarious situation facing the military. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, the military's commander-in-chief, has been suspended after a parliamentary impeachment vote because of his Dec. 3 martial law declaration. The defense minister, the Army chief of staff and several other generals who command important units have also been either arrested or suspended for their roles in Yoon's martial law plot. North Korea has gotten closer to Russia through its dispatch of troops to the Ukraine war. The global security order, including alliances, has been shaken since Donald Trump's inauguration as US president. There are bound to be limitations to what an acting president, acting ministers and acting commanders can do to respond to this situation. To lessen people's uneasiness about security in these troubled times, the military should give people faith and confidence. Regrettably, these military accidents have raised anxiety for the public. The military authorities should tighten discipline. The government and ruling and opposition parties should fill important Army posts as their highest-priority task. As far as security is concerned, the opposition parties ought to throw out partisan politics and cooperate with the government.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Yahoo
South Korean air force pilots charged with criminal negligence over accidental bombing
SEOUL, March 13 (UPI) -- South Korea's military on Thursday charged two air force pilots with criminal negligence over the accidental bombing of a village near the DMZ last week that injured 43 and damaged dozens of buildings, citing pilot error as the cause. "The Defense Ministry's investigation headquarters has confirmed that the pilot's incorrect input of target coordinates was a direct cause of the accident," the ministry said in a text message to reporters. "Accordingly, as of March 13, two pilots were criminally booked on charges of occupational negligence resulting in injury," the message said. They were also charged for damaging military facilities, including a church, a ministry spokesman said during a press briefing Thursday. The pilots have been suspended from performing flight missions and will be undergoing an air service qualification review, a Defense Ministry official later told reporters. A pair of South Korean KF-16 fighter jets accidentally dropped eight MK-82 bombs on a residential area of Pocheon, located around 16 miles from the border with North Korea, during a live-fire exercise last Thursday. The casualty count has increased from 15 on the day of the accident to 43 as of Wednesday, including 29 civilians and 14 soldiers. The incident came ahead of the annual U.S.-South Korea Freedom Shield joint military exercise, which kicked off this week and runs through Mar. 20. The Defense Ministry has suspended all live-fire drills until the exact cause of the bombing accident is determined. In its own interim probe released Monday, Seoul's air force said that the pilot in the first jet mistyped the bombing coordinates and skipped an initial verification procedure. The second pilot had entered the correct coordinates but followed the first jet's lead, as the training was designed as a simultaneous strike drill. Investigators said the pilots had at least three opportunities to catch the mistake before taking off. The air force dismissed two senior officers, a colonel and a lieutenant colonel, for failing to properly oversee safety protocols. On Monday, air force Chief of Staff Gen. Lee Young-su made a public apology, calling it an accident "that should never have happened and should never happen again." "The air force, which should protect the lives and property of the people, inflicted harm on the people," Lee said at a press briefing. North Korea -- which frequently condemns U.S.-South Korea joint drills as rehearsals for an invasion -- commented on the accidental bombing Wednesday, saying another such incident could spark a war. "There is no need to explain how the situation would have developed if a bomb had been dropped towards the north a little further to cross the border of the DPRK," state-run Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea. "It is not unreasonable to imagine that an accidental spark might plunge the Korean peninsula and the region and the rest of the world into a new armed conflict," KCNA said.
Muscat Daily
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Muscat Daily
North Korea launches multiple ballistic missiles
Seoul, South Korea – North Korea has fired unidentified ballistic missiles, the South Korean military said on Monday according to local media. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the military spotted the ballistic missiles at around 1:50pm fired from inland in north Korea's Hwanghae region and the projectiles flew toward the Yellow Sea, Yonhap reported. The JCS said it has bolstered surveillance and maintained a full readiness posture under close cooperation with the United States. The development comes as troops of South Korea and the US began their annual combined drills the 'Freedom Shield' exercise, which was paused after the accidental bombing of a civilian village by fighter jets last week. Two KF-16 fighter jets 'abnormally' dropped eight MK-82 bombs outside a training range in Pocheon, some 40km north of Seoul, during live-fire drills on Thursday, injuring 29, including 15 civilians. South Korea's top Air Force commander issued a public apology today over the incident, the country's state news agency Yonhap reported. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Lee Young-su was cited as saying in a press briefing that the 'accident that should never have happened, and one that should not recur'. An interim probe result released today reaffirmed pilot error as the cause of the bombing, saying the pilot of the first aircraft missed at least three opportunities to prevent the accident after wrongly entering the target coordinates. Meanwhile, Pyongyang has denounced the joint exercises of the Washington and Seoul as a rehearsal for an invasion against it. North Korea released back-to-back statements denouncing the latest joint drills, threatening that Seoul and Washington will pay a 'horrible' price for their 'dangerous provocative act', South Korean news agency Yonhap reported. North Korea had in February this year launched strategic cruise missiles in waters off its west coast to demonstrate the potential of its nuclear deterrence, local media reported adding that its leader Kim Jong-un has called for thorough war preparedness with the country's nuclear forces and readiness for their use. The United Nations Security Council has adopted multiple resolutions sanctioning North Korea over its illegal missile and nuclear programmes since 2006. ANI
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
North Korea fires ballistic missiles as U.S.-South Korea joint military drill kicks off
SEOUL, March 10 (UPI) -- North Korea launched several ballistic missiles toward the Yellow Sea on Monday afternoon, Seoul's military said, on the first day of a large-scale joint U.S-South Korea military exercise on the Peninsula. "The military detected several unidentified ballistic missiles launched from an inland area of Hwanghae Province in North Korea toward the West Sea [Yellow Sea] at around 1:50 p.m.," South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters. "Our military is maintaining a full readiness posture while strengthening surveillance and vigilance and closely cooperating with the United States," the message said. A military official later added that the JCS believes the projectiles were close-range ballistic missiles, or CRBMs. CRBMs are missiles that have a range of less than 185 miles. The launch was the North's fifth missile test of the year and the first time ballistic missiles were fired since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January. It came as the allies' annual springtime Freedom Shield joint training commenced. The exercise, which runs through March 20, involves computer-simulated drills and on-field training. Field exercises this year include "urban combat operations, field hospital operations, mass casualty treatment and evacuation, field artillery exercises, air assault training, wet gap crossing, air defense artillery asset deployment and validation and a joint assault exercise with the U.S. Marine Corps," the U.S. Eighth Army said in a press release Monday. Pyongyang regularly condemns the allies' joint drills as rehearsals for an invasion. Ahead of Monday's missile launch, the North issued a pair of statements criticizing Freedom Shield and warning of retaliatory provocations. Last week, the state-run Korean Central News Agency ran a commentary saying that the United States would "pay dearly" for the exercise. On Monday, the North's Foreign Ministry also weighed in with a statement in KCNA, calling Freedom Shield a "dangerous provocative act" that will result in an "aggravated security crisis." The joint exercise commenced under the shadow of last week's accidental bombing of a residential area in the city of Pocheon by two South Korean KF-16 fighter jets during a live-fire drill. Some 31 people were injured, according to the latest update from the South's Defense Ministry, including 19 civilians and 12 soldiers. The ministry has suspended all live-fire drills, including those in Freedom Shield, until the exact cause of the accident is determined. On Monday, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Lee Young-su made a public apology, calling it an accident "that should never have happened and should never happen again." "The air force, which should protect the lives and property of the people, inflicted harm on the people," Lee said at a press briefing. He promised to help residents with financial, medical and psychological support to recover from the unprecedented mistaken bombing. The air force released its interim investigation report Monday and confirmed that human error was the cause of the accident, with one of the pilots mistakenly entering the coordinates for the bombing target. The Defense Ministry also announced Monday that it was starting its own probe into the incident.
Korea Herald
10-03-2025
- Korea Herald
Air Force apologizes, reaffirms pilot error
Pilot failed to check coordinates 3 times in fighter jet bombing accident: Air Force The two pilots accused of mistakenly dropping bombs on a civilian district last week, failed to follow the mandatory procedure of checking the coordinates at least three times, South Korea's Air Force said in a statement. While reaffirming pilot error as the cause of the accident that left 29 people injured, including 15 civilians, in the border city of Pocheon on Thursday, the Air Force explained that the target coordinates were first incorrectly entered before takeoff. "The pilot of the first aircraft should have checked the target at least three times throughout the process of the assignment, but failed to do so," the Air Force said. Two KF-16 fighter jets are blamed for accidentally dropping MK-82 bombs outside a training range during the first South Korea-US live-fire drills of the year, linked to the annual springtime joint exercise between the allies that kicked off Monday. 'Prior to their takeoff, the pilot of the first aircraft shared the coordinates with the pilot of the second aircraft, who incorrectly entered them in the joint mission planning system (the military's computerized planning system),' the armed services added. 'They should've double checked the coordinates, but did not do so — which marks their first mistake.' Then it became a chain of mistakes. The two pilots continued to save and transfer the incorrect coordinates to a data transfer cartridge, which is fitted on the aircrafts before takeoff. The cartridge on the second aircraft, however, suffered a technical malfunction, which led to the second pilot having to reenter the coordinates himself. While the second pilot managed to correct the coordinates in the process, the first pilot failed to recognize the erroneous numbers. The first pilot, after takeoff, discovered that the flight trajectory was different to the one taken during the preparatory training course, but went ahead with the bombing in order to meet the target time. The Air Force pledged to bolster measures to confirm target coordinates in military exercises and said that the accident was not only caused by pilot error, but inadequate management and inspection procedures. "The Air Force, which should protect the lives and property of the people, inflicted harm on the people," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Lee Young-su said in a public apology. "It was an accident that should never have happened and one that should not reoccur."
