The ceremony to launch North Korea’s new 5,000-ton destroyer at the Chongjin shipyard on Thursday, was attended by Kim Jong-un and his daughter Ju Ae, who many feel is being groomed as Kim’s successor. The event which saw the use of a “sideways launch” turned into a disaster.
The method, previously only employed on smaller commercial vessels, saw the ship’s hull being seriously damaged after the ship’s bow failed to detach as it slid down the improvised slipway.
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State media reported the angry reaction of Kim who was said to have categorized the incident as “a criminal act” resulting from “carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism [sic].” [Kim probably meant to say “unscientific experimentation.” – Ed.]
He said that officials of the country’s Munitions Industry Department, the Academy of Sciences’ Mechanical Institute, the Kim Chaek Central Ship Design Institute, the Chongjin Shipyard and other departments involved would be held to account for an incident that “severely damaged the dignity and pride of our nation in an instant.”
Kim further demanded that the accident must be fully investigated, and any damage repaired in time for June’s plenary meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party – giving North Korea’s naval engineers less than a month to investigate what went wrong and repair the damage caused.
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According to a report in the state Rodong Sinmun news outlet the ships hull was seriously damaged when the stern launching ramp “detached prematurely and ran aground,” blaming “inexperienced command and operational carelessness during the launch” as the cause of this “extremely grave” accident.
NK News, an independent news site that monitors “all things North Korean” cited Shin Seung-ki, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis who said the impact as the hull struck the seabed was likely to have been severely damaged and probably cracked.
He put the accident down to “the lack of precision, skill and expertise” required to launch such a large vessel sideways. Shin added that the vessel twisted rather than entering the water smoothly then combination of the ship’s weight and asymmetric load bearing, would result in the uneven distribution of forces acting on the hull and would likely cause structural damage.
Military analysts had queried the side-launch method being used for the destroyer, which had not previously seen used for warships, after commercial satellite images captured earlier in the week showed more than 20 rails leading from the side of the ship into the water. It was speculated that the location of the shipyard and the construction dock forced the builders to adopt this risky and ultimately unsatisfactory option.
South Korean commentators said that it was highly unusual for the country to acknowledge failures such as this openly – the report of the accident was published on
Rodong Sinmun’s front page. In the past when errors like this occur Kim uses them to announce a redoubling of the efforts needed to succeed.
The construction of the destroyer at Chongjin, the second vessel of its type to be launched this year, addressed Kim’s stated defense priority, one of many, to upgrade its naval capabilities – along with announcements of new warships, naval bases, submarines and advanced missiles.
Shin told NK news that Thursday’s failure could set Kim’s plans for his navy back by “about one to two years.”
“This particular vessel is a multipurpose destroyer expected to provide anti-submarine and anti-air capabilities at sea – capabilities North Korea previously did not possess,” he said, adding “It appears that North Korea is seeking to expand its capabilities from past coastal defense to near-sea defense,” likely in response to South Korean and US naval activity in the region.
Other analysts have pointed out the loss of this vessel, even if only temporary, could compromise the planned deployment of its destroyers to the Sea of Japan. The other destroyer, named the Choe Hyon, was launched in April from the western port of Nampho port will have to sail around South Korea to reach the planned operational area.
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