South Korean soldiers stand guard during a Freedom Shield drill at a training center in Dongducheon, South Korea, March 13, 2025. (Jameson Harris/U.S. Army)
SEOUL, South Korea — U.S. and South Korean troops resumed live-fire drills with small arms Tuesday after a 12-day pause prompted by an accidental bombing that injured 38 people earlier this month.
South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense, following a military-wide safety assessment, approved the resumption of training with 5.56 mm rounds “to maintain readiness,” it said in a news release Tuesday.
The South Korean military’s primary assault rifle, the K2, uses 5.56 mm rounds, the same caliber as the U.S. military’s M-16.
U.S. Forces Korea, which oversees 28,500 American troops on the peninsula, is in daily communication with the defense ministry and will follow its live-fire guidance, Army Col. Ryan Donald said by phone Tuesday.
Live-fire training remains suspended in Pocheon, about 20 miles south of the Demilitarized Zone, as the South Korean air force continues working on “measures to prevent recurrence” of the incident, according to the release. The military will resume tank and artillery live-fire drills at a later date, the ministry said.
The policy change comes nearly two weeks after two South Korean KF-16 fighter jets dropped eight free-fall bombs on a residential area outside a practice range in Pocheon, injuring 38 people.
A preliminary investigation by the South Korean military found that the pilots mistakenly input incorrect bombing coordinates and did not visually confirm the target before releasing the bombs. Both pilots have been charged with criminal negligence, according to the ministry.
On Monday, the South Korean military paused some unmanned aerial vehicle operations after a drone collided with a stationary helicopter at an army airfield in Yangju, about 15 miles north of Seoul.
The drone deviated from its course “for unknown reasons” as it attempted to land, striking a parked helicopter, army spokesman Col. Bae Seok-jin said during a news briefing Tuesday.
No injuries were reported, but the drone was destroyed, and the helicopter was damaged by a fire, according to the ministry.
The drone loss did not create a gap in surveillance, and Seoul continues to monitor North Korea using a variety of reconnaissance assets, South Korean army Lt. Col. Yang Seung-kwan, a Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman, told reporters Tuesday.
Yang declined to discuss the drone’s mission at the time of the crash or the status of the military’s UAV assets, citing operational security.
The latest mishap comes amid the 10-day Freedom Shield military exercise between the United States and South Korea. The large-scale training, which began March 10, involves 19,000 South Korean troops and an unspecified number of U.S. personnel throughout the country.
As part of the exercise, a Navy F-35C Lightning II from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, which docked in South Korea on March 2, joined a joint air drill Thursday alongside two F-35As from the U.S. and South Korean air forces, according to a 7th Air Force news release that day.
