An incident occurred in which a large military drone operated by the army collided with a helicopter that had landed on the ground, resulting in an explosion. This happened just 11 days after an incident involving an airstrike by an Air Force fighter jet hitting a civilian area.
According to Yonhap News on the 17th, around 1 p.m. that day, an incident occurred in which an army command unit's drone, Heron, collided with a Surion helicopter (KUHC-1) in Gyeonggi Province's Yangju City. The collision caused an explosion, igniting the helicopter. Fire authorities responded and extinguished the fire within about 30 minutes. There were no casualties, but both the incident helicopter and drone were completely destroyed.
The drone involved in the incident, Heron, is an unmanned reconnaissance vehicle developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). Our military has deployed the Heron operationally since 2016. The dimensions of the aircraft are 8.5 meters in height and 16.6 meters in width, with a detection range of 20 to 30 kilometers. Our military operates it for monitoring North Korea's coastal artillery in Hwanghae Province and long-range artillery in inland areas.
The Surion helicopter, a Korean medium-lift helicopter involved in the incident, was reported to be on standby at the airfield without any specific mission that day. Surion is the first domestically developed medium-lift helicopter, developed since 2006 by the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) along with the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) and Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI). It was operationally deployed to the army in 2012 and is utilized as both a medium-lift helicopter and a medical evacuation helicopter.
The military reported that there were no special attempts by North Korea to disrupt GPS signals before or after the incident. They are currently investigating the detailed cause of the incident and the exact damage status.
Meanwhile, this incident occurred just 11 days after the Air Force's KF-16 fighter jet mistakenly struck a civilian area.