North Korean missile test fails after launch, sending debris toward Pyongyang

North Korea’s latest missile test on Wednesday ended in apparent failure and may have sent debris falling into its capital Pyongyang, according to reports.

The launch was closely monitored by Seoul and Washington as a potential test of North Korea’s first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) since 2017, reports NPR.

Yonhap News Agency reports the missile exploded in midair at an altitude of less than 20 kilometers (12.4 miles).

Debris fell in or around Pyongyang, reported the Seoul-based NK News, citing anonymous eyewitnesses and a photograph they obtained of the test “showing a red-tinted ball of smoke at the end of a zig-zagging rocket launch trail in the sky above the city,” according to Reuters.

The projectile was launched at around 9:30 a.m. from Pyongyang’s Sunan international airport. Experts are flabbergasted by the regime’s decision to test missiles from Sunan, which is only 17 kilometers (10 miles) away from the capital.

"The idea of placing a dedicated facility to support developmental missile testing at North Korea’s major international airport is absolutely bonkers," Jeffrey Lewis, a missile researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), said in a report on Sunday.

Sunan has been the site for an increasing number of major tests since Aug. 2017, including a pair on Feb. 27 and Mar. 5 this year that U.S. officials believe are developmental tests for the Hwasong-17 ICBM, reports Reuters.

North Korea tends to “concentrate tests in a period of time when geopolitical circumstances are favorable to them,” Yang Uk, a researcher at the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies, told NPR. As an example, he pointed out that Pyongyang did not test any missiles during the Beijing Olympics because of their relationship with China.

Analysts have also noted this is the first North Korean missile test since the election of Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative who has promised to take a firm stance against Pyongyang, as president of South Korea on Mar. 9.