North Korean drones breach South Korea airspace in ‘clear act of provocation’

South Korea fires 100 shots at drones but fails to shoot any of them down

South Korea said on Monday that it had scrambled fighter jets and attack helicopters and fired warning shots after North Korean drones violated its air space.

This is the first time since 2017 that North Korean drones entered its rival’s airspace.

At the time, a suspected North Korean drone was found crashed in South Korea, after which military officials said that the drone photographed a US missile defence system in the South.

In a statement, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said several unmanned North Korean drones crossed the inter-Korean border and were detected in the South’s territory on Monday.

One drone briefly flew over capital Seoul, reported News1 Korea.

The South’s military detected multiple “unidentified objects”, presumed to be unmanned aerial vehicles, at the border areas of Gyeonggi Province on 10.25 am, an official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.

A suspected North Korean drone is viewed at the Defence Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, on 21 June 2017 (AP)

“We also identified them with our eyes,” the official who did not want to be identified was quoted as saying. “An operation is still ongoing against the vehicles.” It is not clear if the drones were armed.

Yonhap later reported that the South fired 100 shots at the drones but failed to shoot them down.

“This is a clear act of provocation by the North violating our airspace,” Lee Seung-o, a South Korean official with the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

South Korean reconnaissance aircraft flew into the North to take photographs in action corresponding to the North Korean drone flights, Lee was quoted as saying by Reuters, suggesting the North Korean drones were also meant for reconnaissance.

The vehicles reportedly flew across the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) that separates the South from the North and were spotted flying in those areas in Gimpo, Ganghwa Island and Paju.

A KA-1 light attack aircraft that was deployed by the South crashed in Hoengseong County, about 140km east of Seoul, at 11.39am for a reason that has not yet been disclosed by the country’s military.

Two pilots operating the aircraft escaped safely.

Military police cover the wreckage of a South Korean KA-1 light attack aircraft with a blue plastic sheet after it crashed on a rice paddy in Hoengseong, Gangwon province on 26 December (EPA)

Civilian fights were subsequently temporarily suspended at the Incheon and Gimpo airports.

A transport ministry official told Reuters that the suspension began at 1.08pm local time at Gimpo and at 1.22pm at Incheon and lasted for about an hour before flight departures resumed at around 2.10pm.

The airspace violation comes just days after the North fired two short-range ballistic missiles on Friday and two medium-range ballistic missiles five days earlier.

This year, North Korea has conducted an unprecedented number of missile tests in what some experts call an attempt to improve its weapons and pressure rivals to make concessions such as lifting sanctions in future negotiations.

Additional reporting by agencies