The country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the military had detected a flying object crossing the Military Demarcation Line from North Korea and scrambled aircraft in response.
The apparent false alarm comes after North Korea reportedly sent five unmanned drones into South Korean airspace on Monday, prompting a similar response from the military.
“There was a situation today, but it was evaluated as a flock of birds, not North Korean drones,” the joint chiefs said in a statement, according to South Korean news outlet KBS News, the country’s national broadcaster.
“We detected and tracked it from around 1.00p.m. to 4.00p.m. today,” an official said.
Fighter planes and attack helicopters were deployed and pilots are reported to have visually confirmed that the flying object was a flock of birds.
Korea JoongAng Daily, an English-language newspaper, reported that the flying object near Seongmo Island in Ganghwa County was suspected of being an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).
The newspaper also reported that a total of 20 military aircraft had been deployed on Monday in an attempt to shoot down North Korean drones that had crossed the border.
One of the five drones that entered South Korean airspace flew above Seoul, the country’s capital, and all the drones returned to North Korean territory without sustaining damage.
South Korean aircraft fired at the drones, with one helicopter attempting unsuccessfully to shoot down a drone over Gyodong Island, by the North Korean border, according to South Korean news agency NEWS1.
A South Korean warplane crashed while responding to the incursion on Monday but both crew members survived. The KA-1 light attack aircraft went down shortly after leaving its base in the district of Wonju, east of Seoul, according an official from the country’s Defense Ministry.
“This is a clear act of provocation by the North violating our airspace,” said Lee Seung-o, a South Korean official with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The last time a drone from North Korea entered South Korea’s airspace was in 2017 and tensions are high between the two countries amid a series of short-range ballistic missile tests and an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test carried out by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s regime.
South Korea’s response to the drones is due in part to concerns they could be used for spying purposes, while the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), part of North Korea’s state media, reported last week that the country had reached an “important, final phase” in the development of a military reconnaissance satellite.
Newsweek has asked the South Korean government for comment.
