People Power Party lawmaker Seong Il-jong holds a press conference at the National Assembly's communication room Tuesday to criticize the Army's 1st Corps over its misidentification of a friendly drone. [Yonhap]
People Power Party lawmaker Seong Il-jong holds a press conference at the National Assembly's communication room Tuesday to criticize the Army's 1st Corps over its misidentification of a friendly drone. [Yonhap]

People Power Party lawmaker Seong Il-jong on Tuesday called for the immediate resignation of Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back over a recent incident in which the military nearly misidentified a friendly drone as an enemy aircraft and came close to triggering a full air-defense alert. "Ahn Gyu-back is the one responsible for rendering our military ungovernable," Seong said. "Immediate resignation is the only way he can be held accountable."

Speaking at a press conference at the National Assembly Tuesday morning, Seong said another major incident had occurred at the Army's 1st Corps on Monday. "This time, it was not a US military drone but a friendly drone that was nearly shot down after being mistaken for an enemy aircraft, and the military came close to issuing a 'Durumi' alert," he said, using the Korean term for the air-defense readiness posture. "It is truly devastating to see our military fall apart like this."

Seong said the Army Test and Evaluation Command had notified the 1st Corps on Monday that it would conduct a drone test flight, and the morning flight proceeded without incident. "But when another drone test was conducted over the 1st Corps around 4:20 p.m., the corps mistook it for an enemy aircraft and nearly shot it down, going so far as to initiate procedures to issue the Durumi air-defense readiness alert," he said.

Seong also said the military's operational system had "completely broken down." He pointed to a series of recent incidents at the 1st Corps and laid responsibility for them squarely on Minister Ahn.

Seong criticized the string of failures, which he said included nearly shooting down a US Marine Corps drone on Thursday that was flying near the truce line in Paju as part of a joint Korea-US exercise, stationing troops at general outpost positions with unloaded weapons — so-called "empty-rifle guard duty" — and now the latest friendly-drone incident.

When reporters asked whether the drone had truly come close to being shot down, Seong said the situation had escalated to the point where issuing the Durumi alert was under active consideration. "It was only when the aircraft was confirmed to be friendly that the alert was not issued," he said. "The flight schedule should have been communicated properly, but even within our own forces the control system failed to function."


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