South Korea scrambled warplanes and attack helicopters and fired warning shots on Monday after North Korean drones violated its airspace, the South Korean military said.
South Korea tracked the drones crossing from North Korea over what’s generally known as the Military Demarcation Line between the 2 countries after detecting them within the skies of the western city of Gimpo at around 10:25 am, the military said.
The drones are the primary confirmed to have come from the isolated neighbour since 2017, when a North Korean drone believed to be on a spy mission crashed and was found on a mountain near the border.
In 2014, a North Korean drone was also discovered on a South Korean border island.
At the very least one drone got here down farther and flew over South Korea’s capital Seoul in the most recent intrusion, News1 agency reported, citing an unnamed military official.
The military said it tried to shoot down the drones, nevertheless it was not clear if it was successful, and whether any of them were armed.
South Korea’s transport ministry said earlier that flights departing from its Incheon and Gimpo airports were suspended following a request from the military.
The suspension began at 1:08 p.m. at Gimpo and at 1:22 pm at Incheon and lasted for about an hour before flight departures resumed at around 2:10 pm, a ministry official told Reuters.
While scrambling to counter the drones, a South Korean KA-1 light attack aircraft crashed shortly after departing its Wonju base within the country’s east, a defense ministry official said. Its two pilots were in a position to escape before the crash and at the moment are within the hospital.