On the 6th, following the KF-16 fighter jet's misfire accident that occurred in the area around the Pocheon Advanced Scientific Training Center in Gyeonggi Province, military authorities noted on the 10th that there were criticisms regarding the slow response of the military, stating that "overall situational management was not properly executed."
The Air Force said during a morning announcement of the interim investigation results, "As a result of investigating the delays in situation assessment and reporting, multiple insufficient aspects were identified." Initially, it took 14 minutes from when the Air Operations Command's situation room recognized the misfire around 10:07 a.m. to report it to the operations commander. The operations command was supposed to report immediately to the higher command, but it was revealed that the verbal report was delayed and the written report was also omitted.
An Air Force official said, "After recognizing the situation around 10:07 a.m., there was a delay in the process of identifying what specific situation it was and subsequently reporting and taking action. Despite recognizing it was a fighter jet's misfire, management of the misfire situation was not properly executed as the focus was on verifying whether the bomb that caused civilian casualties was indeed dropped from the fighter jet."
The Air Force announced the misfire situation to the media around 11:41 a.m. on the 6th. The bomb was dropped on a civilian house around 10:04 a.m., which was 1 hour and 37 minutes later. An Air Force official stated, "We determined that determining the accurate facts was a priority. The Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team was deployed to the scene and confirmed the fragments of the MK-82 bomb before announcing the facts."
An Air Force official added, "Considering the seriousness of the situation, we believe it would have been more appropriate to inform about the 'abnormal drop' situation immediately after it occurred." The military is referring to this incident as an 'abnormal drop' rather than a misfire. The Air Force plans to hold accountable those identified with negligence related to situation assessment and reporting according to laws and regulations.