Additional Flight Safety Zone Restrictions Lifted at Sejong Jochiwon Airfield, Totaling 90% Reduction

Additional portions of the flight safety zone around Jochiwon Airfield, spanning areas in Yeonseo-myeon, Sejong City, will be lifted.
Sejong City announced that the Ministry of National Defense will lift restrictions on an additional 0.7 square kilometers of the flight safety zone around Jochiwon Airfield tomorrow, July 22.
The flight safety zone at Jochiwon Airfield, which originally spanned 16.2 square kilometers, was reduced to approximately 2.5 square kilometers in December 2023 as the facility's designation changed from a support aviation operation base to a helicopter-only operation base.
Following this, the flight safety zone will be finalized at approximately 1.8 square kilometers, reflecting plans for the relocation of the military airfield runway and the demolition of the existing runway.
Although the Ministry of National Defense had initially stated that further lifting of restrictions would not be possible until after 2028, the timeline was moved forward after Sejong City consistently argued that the grounds for maintaining the flight safety zone had disappeared due to the runway demolition.
With this development, approximately 90% of the total area of the Jochiwon Airfield flight safety zone has been lifted, reducing it from 16.2 square kilometers to 1.8 square kilometers, about 10 years after Sejong City first requested consultations with the Ministry of National Defense regarding the relocation of military facilities in 2016.
(Photo courtesy of Sejong City, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.