South Korean troops fired at a civilian airplane near the disputed Yellow Sea border with North Korea, misidentifying it as one of the communist country’s military planes, but no damage occurred, Yonhap said on Saturday.
Two Marine Corps soldiers guarding the waters off the South’s western city of Incheon, fired their K-2 rifles for about 10 minutes at dawn Friday. The plane was later identified as an Asiana Airlines flight.
The aircraft was not damaged as it was about 500 to 600 meters out of the range of the K-2 rifles, Yonhap said citing a military source.
The soldiers claimed the jet was flying north of its normal route, but an official from Asiana Airlines said the plane never deviated from its course.
The report comes amid simmering tensions in the area, with the Yellow Sea maritime border the scene of deadly naval clashes between two Koreas in 1999, 2002 and November 2009.