[Anchor]

It has been confirmed that a Chinese national used a walkie-talkie to listen in on communications between the control tower and pilots for an extended period at the Jeju International Airport observation deck. This means that air traffic control communications at Jeju Airport, a national critical facility, were exposed to a regular walkie-talkie.

JIBS reporter Jung Yong-gi has the report.

[Reporter]

This is the observation deck located on the fourth floor of Jeju International Airport.

A suspicious man holding a black walkie-talkie was recently spotted here.

Another visitor found this unusual and reported it to the information desk. Upon verification, it was found that the man was eavesdropping on communications between the control tower and pilots using a walkie-talkie.

[Kim Hee-jin / Deputy Manager, Customer Support Department, Nambu Airport Service: Since visitors generally do not carry walkie-talkies, and conversations were being received through the device, I felt something was wrong and immediately reported it to the control room.]

The person who listened to the air traffic control contents via walkie-talkie was a Chinese teenager.

The Chinese national, who was arrested at the scene, is known to have entered Jeju carrying the walkie-talkie from China on the day of the incident.

It was revealed that the Chinese national illegally eavesdropped on communications between the control tower and pilots for about an hour and thirty minutes using the walkie-talkie.

The problem is that the communication contents of Jeju Airport, which holds the highest security rating for national critical facilities, were completely exposed to a regular walkie-talkie.

It is presumed that listening was possible using a foreign-made walkie-talkie because there are no separate security devices on the air traffic control communication frequencies.

[Kwon Bo-heon / Professor, Department of Aviation Safety Management, Far East University: You can listen to (communication contents) with Chinese-made or overseas devices. If it says, 'Which aircraft was cleared to land at what hour and minute,' there are possibilities where someone could actually plant a bomb or attack with a drone. Security becomes vulnerable.]

Police have issued a departure ban on the Chinese national and are investigating the specific motives for the crime and whether there are any anti-state espionage suspicions.

As loopholes that could threaten aviation safety have been exposed, a complete overhaul of the overall security system has become inevitable.

(Photo: JIBS, Oh Il-ryung)

JIBS Jung Yong-gi