South Korean fighter jets accidentally bombed homes during a live-fire drill with US forces, injuring more than a dozen people, Seoul\u2019s military said on Thursday. <\/p>\n
Eight MK-82 general-purpose bombs were \u201cabnormally dropped\u201d from two KF-16 fighter jets and landed outside the designated firing range at approximately 10:07 a.m. local time, hitting civilian infrastructure in Pocheon city, northeast of the capital Seoul, according to the South Korean Air Force. <\/p>\n
South Korea\u2019s defense ministry said initial findings indicated the accident was caused by a pilot inputting incorrect bombing coordinates. <\/p>\n
An image that local media outlets said captured the aftermath of the explosions showed thick smoke billowing into the air in a rural area. <\/p>\n
The blasts destroyed two residential buildings, part of a church, and a truck. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe scene of the incident is chaotic, resembling a battlefield,\u201d Pocheon Mayor Baek Young-hyun said in a televised statement. <\/p>\n
South Korea\u2019s military said all live-fire training would be suspended from Thursday until a probe into the incident had concluded. An accident response team has been formed to investigate and the air force said it would provide compensation for damages. <\/p>\n
The air force apologized that the \u201cabnormal bomb release has caused civilian damage\u201d and wished the injured a swift recovery. <\/p>\n
The Freedom Shield drills were scheduled to run from March 10 to March 20 to strengthen the US-South Korean alliance\u2019s combined defense posture, Seoul\u2019s Joint Chiefs of Staff said earlier Thursday. <\/p>\n
The annual drills often rile nuclear-armed North Korea, which views them as provocations. <\/p>\n
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has accused the United States and South Korea of increasing tensions with their joint drills and Pyongyang often responds with bellicose threats. <\/p>\n
In 2023, as US strategic bombers took part in joint air drills with South Korean forces, North Korea carried out a ballistic missile test, according to the South Korean military. <\/p>\n
This story has been updated with additional information.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" South Korean fighter jets accidentally bombed homes during a live-fire drill with US forces, injuring…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}