South Korea has mixed up aircraft and fired gunfire after five North Korean drones entered its territory for the first time since 2017, an escalation in already tense relations between neighbors.
A South Korean official described the violation of the country’s airspace on Monday as a “clear provocation.” In response, South Korea sent its own spy plane across the border across northern territory.
The drones were first spotted in the sky over the northwestern city of Gimpo around 10:25 a.m. (01:25 GMT), South Korean officials said.
Eunice Kim reported from the capital Seoul, CNN Breaking News that the drones appeared to have “flown for several hours” and that “helicopters and fighter aircraft were used in response, including a light KA-1 attack plane that apparently crashed some 140 kilometers [87 miles] east of Seoul.”
A Ministry of Defense official confirmed that a South Korean KA-1 fighter plane was involved in an accident when it flew to counter the North Korean drones after leaving its Wonju base in the north of the country. The two pilots fled the crash and are now in hospital.
One of the five North Korean drones flew near the South Korean capital Seoul and the others flew near the west coast.
Lee Seung-o, a South Korean official with the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a media briefing that the military had used “means to shoot down” the drones but did not specify whether they had been successful. Lee said South Korea initially fired “warning shots” when it spotted the drones for the first time.
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Yonhap news agency later said the South Korean military fired around 100 shots but fired none. It is unclear whether the drones have succeeded in returning to the northern region.
South Korean reconnaissance aircraft flew north to take photos in action that were consistent with North Korean drone flights, Lee said, suggesting that the North Korean drones were also intended for espionage.
Several commercial flights at Incheon and Gimpo airports “were interrupted for around 50 minutes at the request of the South Korean military,” says Kim, adding that “it is not known whether they (the drones) carry weapons.”
It is the first time since 2017 that North Korean drones have entered South Korean airspace when a drone believed to have been on an espionage mission crashed and was found on a mountain near the border. South Korean officials estimate that North Korea has around 300 drones.
North Korea had also launched two short-range ballistic missiles on Friday following a joint air exercise by South Korea and the United States a few days earlier.
Pyongyang has shown its military might in recent weeks, testing a barrage of missiles that have caused concern in South Korea, Japan and their Western allies.