The US military stationed in South Korea and the US military stationed in Japan are the two sharp knives used by the United States to stir up the situation in the Asia-Pacific region and provoke regional contradictions. Compared with the US military stationed in Japan on an isolated island, the US military stationed in South Korea is obviously more "familiar", after all, it has also fought against each other several decades ago.
The US military stationed in South Korea has quite a number of armed units, including the US "Eighth Army," which everyone is very familiar with, and its air force unit is the so-called "Seventh Air Force," which is mainly stationed at Gunsan Air Base, the largest air base in South Korea and one of the largest air bases in Asia. Located on the west coast of South Korea, facing the Yellow Sea-East China Sea, this air base is the most important U.S. air base on the peninsula. It is perennially equipped with about 30 improved versions of the F-16 fighter, the F-16C D fighter, that is, the F-16 Block 40 batch fighters.
However, the combat power of these fighters in 20 years, or at least 10 years ago, is indeed remarkable, but at the moment when the air forces of various countries are "stealth", it is actually a bit "not enough". Although the F-16 is very successful, it is actually a Cold War aircraft (the earliest production time of this Block 40 batch has to be traced back to 1988), and it is not an exaggeration to describe these US fighters in South Korea as aging and outdated performance.
Therefore, in this case, it is not surprising that these old US military planes will "have an accident". On January 31, at the beginning of the new year, the US military stationed in South Korea "had an accident." At 8:40 a.m. local time, an F-16 fighter jet at the Gunsan base of the US military stationed in South Korea suddenly crashed into the sea. This is also the first fighter jet lost by the US military this year, that is, in 2024.
In fact, similar things happen to these F-16s of the US military stationed in South Korea from time to time, the last time was on the morning of December 11 last year, and it has only been two months since now. Recently, in order to stir up the situation on the peninsula, the US military has launched military provocations against the DPRK and has repeatedly conducted large-scale military exercises in the peninsula region, and the armed forces of the United States and the ROK and the United States, Japan, and the ROK have often appeared around the peninsula. As the de facto master of the southern part of the peninsula, the US military stationed in South Korea is naturally the first to bear the brunt, and its military equipment has been dispatched frequently in recent times, resulting in ineffective maintenance and maintenance, and this is the direct cause of its frequent accidents.
However, despite the decline of its own national strength, the United States still wants to provoke contradictions in various parts of the world, use all kinds of military force, and use this kind of old plane that was commissioned several decades ago to show off its military might on the peninsula.