Rep. Sung Il-jong Calls for Defense Minister's Resignation Over Friendly Drone Misidentified as Enemy

People Power Minister Sung Il-jong urged Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back to step down immediately on August 4, revealing that the Army's 1st Corps misidentified a friendly drone as an enemy aircraft and came close to shooting it down.

During a press conference at the National Assembly today, Representative Sung stated, "Another massive incident erupted yesterday within the Army's 1st Corps." He added, "This time, they mistook a friendly drone—not even a U.S. military drone—for an enemy aircraft, pushing it to the brink of being shot down and nearly issuing the 'Durumi' air defense alert."

He explained that although the Army Test and Evaluation Group had previously notified the 1st Corps of its plan to conduct "flight operations for drone testing and evaluation," the 1st Corps mistook it for an enemy aircraft, nearly shooting it down and initiating procedures to issue "Durumi," an anti-air defense readiness posture.

"Is this really a military when operations are conducted with such total lack of control between friendly forces, let alone not even involving the U.S. military?" Sung rebuked, asking, "How on earth has our military become so broken?"

He continued, "Back in February of this year, communication issues between South Korean and U.S. higher-level commands led to misunderstandings during large-scale West Sea air exercises by U.S. Forces Korea, and on July 30 near the Paju armistice line, a U.S. Marine Corps drone flying as part of South Korea-U.S. combined exercises was almost misidentified as an enemy aircraft and shot down," adding, "This is the pathetic self-portrait of our military."

Addressing Defense Minister Ahn, Sung demanded his immediate resignation, saying, "Properly explain this grave situation to the public and clearly reveal exactly what kinds of problems exist within our military's system."

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.