According to a report last year, one errant North Korean missile went rogue and crashed into a city not far from the capital of Pyongyang.
When a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile turned itself into a very-short-range rocket, it failed during a test flight on April 28, 2017, and slammed into the city of Tokchon.
The missile launched from the Pukchang airfield, flew 24 miles before taking a nosedive and striking a complex of industrial and agricultural buildings.
The US government source with knowledge of the hermit kingdom’s weapons program, said the missile’s first-stage engines failed after about a minute of flight.
The location of the missile’s impact was revealed to The Diplomat, which said it corroborated the flub using commercially available satellite imagery from April and May 2017.
The images show that the explosion caused heavy damage in the heavily populated area. However, there is no way to tell if it led to casualties.
The missile would have landed in the Sea of Japan, near the Russian coast, had the test flight been successful.
Many media outlets around the world reported the failed test which is the third involving the Hwasong-12. Details about where the missile fell remained a mystery until now.
North Korean despot Kim Jong Un fearing such a flop, chose the remote seaside resort town of Sinpo as the test site of the first two failed launches in April.
The reclusive regime now has several new test sites, including Pyongyang’s Sunan Airport, the country’s civil aviation hub and entry point for most non-Chinese visitors.
On May 14, 2017, despite several failures, a Hwasong-12 was successfully test launched leading the way for the introduction of the Hwasong-14/KN20 intercontinental ballistic missile. North Korea’s aggressive missile testing ratcheted up tensions between Pyongyang and Washington.
Kim declared during a televised speech: “The United States can never fight a war against me and our state. It should properly know that the whole territory of the US is within the range of our nuclear strike and a nuclear button is always on the desk of my office, and this is just a reality, not a threat.”
President Trump upped the ante when he fired back with this threatening tweet:
“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.’ Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” he wrote.
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