In Front of President Lee... Another Drone Crashes on Armed Forces Day

[Financial News] A drone deployed for an air-defense weapons demonstration at the 78th Armed Forces Day ceremony, held in the presence of President Lee Jae-myung, crashed.
The accident occurred during an air-defense weapons demonstration held on the 1st to mark the 78th Armed Forces Day. One of two small fiber-optic drones deployed as target drones suddenly crashed during takeoff while demonstrating Cheongwang, a domestically developed laser air-defense weapon that the Ministry of National Defense had prepared as the highlight of this year's ceremony.
The drone lost its balance and crashed, with the scene captured in close-up by a camera and broadcast live. During the first demonstration, Cheongwang was scheduled to engage two target drones sequentially. After one crashed, however, only the remaining drone was intercepted.
In the second demonstration, which involved engaging two target drones simultaneously, both drones successfully took off, but Cheongwang intercepted only one of them.
According to the military, the drone was a fiber-optic model that used a thin fiber-optic cable instead of radio waves. It reportedly crashed after a gust of wind damaged the fiber optic.
While the emcee announced, "The drone is crashing while emitting sparks," the other drone, which had been hovering normally, fell after its power was manually shut off. This scene was also captured on camera and broadcast live.
A Ministry of National Defense official explained, "The drone left the safe area due to weather conditions aloft, and we forcibly brought it down for safety."
The target-drone crash occurred amid a series of drone and unmanned-aircraft accidents at military-organized public events in recent months.
At an advanced drone technology demonstration hosted by the Ministry of National Defense on the 16th of last month, privately developed drones, including a jet-engine-powered unmanned aircraft, crashed one after another. In August, two medium-sized suicide drones launched by the Navy and the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) from ROKS Marado (LPH, a 14,500-ton-class vessel) as part of combat testing both crashed into the sea.
[email protected] Kim Hee-sun Reporter