South Korean exercise mishap: KF‑16 mistakenly drops bombs
"Eight MK-82 general-purpose bombs were abnormally released from an Air Force KF-16 aircraft, landing outside the designated firing range," reports the Korean Air Forces. We explain what kind of ammunition hit civilian buildings.
In South Korea, exercises within the Freedom Shield 2025 maneuvers framework have already begun, mobilizing F-35A, F-15, and KF-16 fighters. It was the KF-16 that was involved in the incident at 9 PM Eastern Time near the Seungjin range in the town of Pocheon. The KF-16 "improperly" dropped eight Mk 82 bombs 40 kilometres from Seoul. As a result of the bomb drop, 15 people were injured, and several buildings were damaged.
The aircraft dropped bombs on civilian structures
Let us explain that the Mk 82 bombs mentioned are American general-purpose designs with a nominal weight of about 227 kilograms. They are one of the smallest designs of this type currently in use and also one of the most popular in the world (in 2017, their production began at the Nitro-Chem plant in Bydgoszcz).
The Mk 82 is a free-falling bomb with a fragmentation-explosive warhead, containing tritonal, which is a charge weighing about 87 kilograms. The length of a single missile reaches about 2.2 metres, while the diameter is just under 30 centimetres. This ammunition can be used with different fins, fuzes, and systems to delay descent. The Mk 82 is also used as the warhead of laser-guided systems (bombs from the GBU family, i.e., GBU-12, GBU-22, GBU-38). Generally, it is armament designed to conduct strikes toward buildings.
The KAI KF-16 Fighting Falcon, on the other hand, is a South Korean fighter aircraft developed based on the American F-16 Fighting Falcon. It has served in the Korean Air Force since 1998 and is a multi-role design for conducting air-to-air and air-to-ground missions.
The "Korean F-16" propulsion is the Pratt & Whitney F-100-PW-229 engine—created to provide the best possible thrust-to-weight ratio and excellent manoeuvrability. Thanks to this, the KF-16 is a difficult target in the sky—it moves quickly and is agile.
