Flights and landings at South Korea’s Incheon International Airport were disrupted for nearly three hours before dawn on Wednesday because of garbage balloons released by North Korea, an airport spokesman said.
One balloon landed on the tarmac near passenger Terminal 2, and Incheon’s three runways were temporarily closed, the spokesman said.
North Korea has launched balloons carrying garbage into South Korea since late May, with hundreds of them landing in South Korea.
The spokesman said several balloons were seen in and around the airport. He added that this is not the first time operations at the airport – which is about 40 km from the North Korean border – have been disrupted due to nearby balloons.
Incheon International Airport Corporation said the disruption to domestic and international flights occurred between 1:46 a.m. and 4:44 a.m. and that the runways had since reopened.
The number of flights is usually low at that time of day. Flightradar24 showed that eight incoming cargo and passenger flights at that time were diverted to Cheongju or Jeju airports in South Korea, and one China Cargo freighter from Shanghai was diverted to Yantai, China.
Many flights were delayed in landing and their departures were delayed by several hours.
North Korea has said the balloons are retaliation for a propaganda campaign run by North Korean defectors and South Korean activists who regularly send balloons carrying food, medicine, money and leaflets criticizing North Korea’s leaders.
South Korea has said the North Korean balloons included items such as articles bearing Hello Kitty characters, badly torn clothing, and soil containing traces of human feces and parasites.
South Korea’s military said on Wednesday that about 100 balloons fell to the ground between Tuesday and Wednesday, most of them in the capital Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi province. Most of these were just pieces of paper.
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