Seoul, South Korea — South Korea suspended the training flights of air force aircraft and all live-fire drills following its fighter jets’ accidental bombing of a civilian area, officials said Friday, posing a potential setback to its upcoming annual military training with the United States.
On Thursday, two South Korean KF-16 fighter jets mistakenly released four MK-82 bombs each on a civilian area in Pocheon, a city near the tense border with North Korea. The bombing, which injured nearly 30 people, two of them seriously, occurred when South Korean and U.S. forces were engaging in a live-fire drill in connection with their broader Freedom Shield command post exercise set to begin Monday.
This year’s Freedom Shield exercise is the allies’ first major joint training since President Trump returned to office in January and comes amid concerns about North Korea’s booming military cooperation with Russia.
South Korea and the U.S. announced details of the exercises on Thursday, but that was overshadowed by the news of bombing, which drew intense public criticism in South Korea.
Chris Jung / NurPhoto via Getty Images
Both the South Korean and U.S. militaries halted all live-fire exercises across South Korea. Military officials said South Korea’s air force also stopped the flights of all its aircraft except surveillance planes and others needed for emergency situations.
Military officials said the Freedom Shield training will proceed as scheduled and they plan to restart live-fire and flight training after they find the exact cause of the bombing and formulate preventative steps.
But if they fail to resume the paused training by Monday, when they kick off the Freedom Shield exercise with the U.S. military, that would hurt the workings of the early parts of the exercise, observers say.
Possible issues with U.S.-South Korean joint exercises
Lee Illwoo, an expert with the Korea Defense Network in South Korea, said the suspension of flight training would particularly cause “really a big problem in examining the two countries’ operational plans.” He said flying warplanes would be essential to determining their actual capabilities, discussing the size of reinforcements of U.S. aircraft from abroad and modifying the allies’ operational plans.
Initial investigations found the pilot of one of the KF-16s entered wrong coordinates for a bombing site. Officials said the pilots of the two jets had more than 200-400 hours of flying time. But Lee said they likely piloted KF-16s only two to three years.
The South Korean and U.S. militaries have already begun field exercises in connection with the Freedom Shield, and Thursday’s live-fire drill was one of them. Col. Ryan Donald, spokesperson for the U.S. military in South Korea, confirmed that American servicemembers were participating in Thursday’s live-fire training but said no U.S. air force aircraft were still involved.
“We take this incident very seriously. We are coordinating closely with the ROK Ministry of Defense and are committed to a thorough and transparent investigation,” Donald said in a statement, using the acronym of South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.
The incident happened as North Korea was ramping up its fiery rhetoric against the U.S. and South Korea, as it views their joint drills as invasion rehearsals. North Korea’s state news agency warned Friday that the U.S. and South Korea “will have to pay dearly for their stupid and reckless war drills.”
Mr. Trump has said he would reach out to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again to revive diplomacy, but Pyongyang hasn’t responded to any overtures he might have made.
In Seoul, there were concerns that Mr. Trump might scale back U.S.-South Korean military drills because during his first term, he complained about the cost of bilateral exercises and once unilaterally announced the cancellation of one drill after his first summit with Kim.
But Lee said Mr. Trump now knows the importance of South Korea in America’s Indo-Pacific and China policies and won’t downsize drills with South Korea.
This year’s field training being held alongside the Freedom Shield involves 16 brigade-level field trainings, up from 10 such drills last year, according to South Korea’s military.
