A simple defect in the launch tube caused all of the military's suicide drones to crash into the sea during a maritime launch combat experiment on the 25th, an investigation found.
An official at the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) told reporters on the 28th that a preliminary analysis of the crashes had reached that conclusion.
The launcher used that day consisted of two launch tubes stacked vertically, and the left door of the lower tube was found to have an alignment problem, according to ADD. The tube door had been installed with a slight twist.
As a result, when a drone was launched from the upper tube, the drone's thrust momentarily pushed in the door of the lower tube. That created an imbalance in reaction force and pulled the drone to the right.
The drone, its attitude destabilized, eventually turned completely to the right, became unable to fly and crashed into the sea.
The structural deformation of the tube door occurred only momentarily when the drone was launched and returned to its original shape immediately afterward, so it could not be detected on site.
"The drone and the overall system were confirmed to be operating normally," the ADD official said. "As developers, we regret more than anyone that a simple defect produced the worst possible outcome. The launch tube misalignment appears to have occurred while the launcher was being moved, loaded as cargo or assembled." The official said the exact cause was still under investigation.
The mid-size suicide drone program is one of ADD's core technology research and development projects, launched in 2024. Its stated goals include integration with low-Earth-orbit satellites and automatic target recognition (ATR) capability.
The Navy and ADD conducted the first combat experiment operating a mid-size suicide drone at sea on the 25th from the Marado (LPH), a 14,500-ton large transport ship, in the South Sea. Both drones launched flew for only a few seconds before falling into the water.
Korean Air, LIG and Hanwha are among the major domestic defense companies taking part in the development of the drone. Each prototype that crashed cost about 800 million won, according to the defense industry.
