Seven injured after South Korea fighter jet accidentally drops bombs
Seven people in South Korea were injured, four of whom took it seriously, a fighter accidentally dropped eight bombs in a civilian area during a live fire.
The incident involving the Air Force KF-16 aircraft occurred around 10:04 local time (01:04 GMT), located in the city of Pocheon near the border with North Korea.
It is believed that only one bomb exploded. Pocheon authorities told the BBC that a bomb disposal team is working to safely deal with seven other unexploded bombs. They said residents living near the area have been evacuated.
While shells for live shooting exercises sometimes land near civilian residences, they rarely cause harm.
According to local media reports, the two people had fractured their necks and shoulders.
Yonhap reported that a 60-year-old man drove his car when the explosion occurred with shrapnel floats around their necks.
“I was driving when I heard the ‘explosion’,” they said. “When I woke up, I was in an ambulance.”
“Our KF-16 (jet fighter) dropped eight MK-82 bombs abnormally. It landed outside the range of shooting,” the South Korean Air Force said in a statement to the BBC.
It said it is investigating the incident and apologizing for the damages, adding that it will provide compensation to those affected.
Yang UK, a military expert and researcher at the ASAN Policy Institute, told the BBC that if the bombs were “declined at a height “below the planned height,” it might not explode.
A church building and house where the incident occurred was also damaged.
Images published in local media showed the building’s windows ruptured and the church roof was damaged.
A local resident told Yonhap that when the explosion sounded like “Ryklap”, he had been watching TV at home and shook the house.
A director of a nearby senior citizen care center said the building’s windows were broken and one of their teachers was taken to the hospital for injuries. They said that although no one was injured, they said, “They were so scared that we sent them all home.”
The Department of Defense said Thursday’s training was related to joint exercises with the U.S. military.
South Korea and the United States will conduct a merged drill from March 10 to March 20, the first since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House. This is a time when the two countries are increasingly alert to the growing alliance between North Korea and Russia.
In another joint exercise between South Korea and the United States in 2022, troops fired a short-range ballistic missile that broke down and crashed on the golf course of the military base. The warhead did not explode, but it still exploded and caused panic fluctuations in the residents of the area.
