Drone Crashes Again at Armed Forces Day Event in Front of President Lee

Today (October 1), an accident occurred during an anti-aircraft weapon demonstration at the 78th Armed Forces Day ceremony attended by President Lee Jae-myung, when a drone deployed for the event crashed.

The accident happened during a technology demonstration of "Cheon-gwang," an indigenously developed laser anti-aircraft weapon system that the Ministry of National Defense had prepared as the highlight of this year's ceremony.

Four small fiber-optic drones were deployed as target drones for the Cheon-gwang demonstration, but one of the two targets deployed in the first round suddenly crashed during takeoff.

The scene of the drone losing balance and crashing was captured in a close-up shot by broadcast cameras and aired live.

The military explained that the drone is a tethered fiber-optic drone that uses thin optical fiber cables instead of radio frequencies, and that it crashed after the fiber-optic cable was damaged by a sudden gust of wind.

Cheon-gwang was initially scheduled to fire sequentially at two target drones in the first demonstration, but as one target drone crashed, it intercepted only the remaining one.

In the second demonstration to simultaneously engage two target drones, both targets successfully took off, but Cheon-gwang succeeded in intercepting only one of them.

Despite the host's announcement that "the drone is sparking and falling," the other drone, which was hovering normally in midair, crashed only after its power was manually cut off.

This scene was also captured on camera and broadcast live.

A defense ministry official explained regarding the drone, "Due to aerial weather conditions, the drone deviated from the safety zone, and it was forcibly brought down for safety reasons."

This target drone crash occurred amid a recent string of drone and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) crashes during military-hosted public events.

On September 16, privately developed drones, including a jet-engine UAV, crashed one after another at an advanced drone technology demonstration hosted by the Ministry of National Defense. In August, two medium-sized suicide drones launched by the Navy and the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) from the amphibious assault ship Marado (LPH, 14,500-ton class) as part of combat experimentation both plunged into the sea.

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