An unmanned helicopter that crashed near Incheon during a test flight on the 10th was not lost due to GPS jamming emanating from North Korea, the Ministry of National Defense has confirmed.

Commenting on the case in a ministry briefing today, a spokesperson explained, “It appears to have crashed due to an error in the operating process. It was unrelated (to North Korean GPS jamming).”

The crash occurred 30 minutes after takeoff, when the unmanned helicopter suddenly fell from an altitude of 15m and crashed into its control vehicle. One Austrian technician died as a result, and another two Korean employees were hurt.

The 3m long, 150kg unmanned helicopter was produced by Schiebel, an Austrian company which specializes in unmanned aircraft.

As of the 9th, the South Korean authorities had received 676 reports of GPS jamming since it first occurred on April 28th.