North Korea’s Failed Ship Launch: Failure or a Step Toward Progress?

North Korea’s failed launch of a 5,000-tonne destroyer at the Chongjin Shipyard on May 21 and its follow-on actions that included arrests of responsible officers made countless international headlines both for North Korea’s admission of and the details of the accident. The country managed to refloat the ship in just 15 days, defying many analysts’ estimate that the task would take weeks. Pyongyang has since confidently declared that it would meet Kim Jong Un’s instruction to restore the ship by the next Party plenary meeting in late June.

The headlines aside, this incident raises more fundamental questions about North Korea’s shipbuilding capacity, what its intentions are as it continues to build its naval capabilities, and potential implications of North Korea’s naval ambitions. Kim Jong Un since August 2023 has consistently emphasized the importance of expanding and modernizing its naval forces. In 2025 alone, North Korea revealed that it was building a “nuclear-powered strategic guided missile submarine” and successfully launched a new destroyer at the Nampho Shipyard, just one month before the failed sister-ship destroyer launch in Chongjin. Experts are generally skeptical about North Korea’s naval capabilities, but time and again, including the country’s recent floating of the capsized ship, the country has demonstrated that it can make impressive progress when it is prepared to devote priority, resources, and time. This will be made easier if the North Korean navy is receiving technological assistance from Russia, as some experts believe. This is all the more significant given Pyongyang’s growing naval ambitions that extend beyond coastal defense, as well as the potential economic benefits it sees by continuing to pursue its naval expansion programs.

Reviewing the Accident

North Korea apparently began building two “new-type multi-mission destroyers” of the Choe Hyon class in the spring of 2024, one each at Nampho on the west coast and Chongjin on the east coast. These are the North’s largest warships to date, measuring some 144 meters long and 15-16 meters wide, and according to Pyongyang displace (weigh) 5,000 tonnes.[1] The ships are equipped with vertical launch systems for various types of missiles, including nuclear-capable short-range ballistic missiles and land-attack cruise missiles.

The namesake ship of the Choe Hyon class was moved from covered in Nampho to a floating drydock between late March and early April 2025, and then launched from the drydock on April 25 in the presence of Kim Jong Un and consistent with North Korea’s claim that it had been built “in a little over 400 days.” The ship conducted an offshore “performance and combat application test” of many of its weapons systems on April 28 and 29, although it is unclear whether the destroyer moved under its own power or was moved to and from Nampho by tugs.

The second destroyer of this class, name currently unknown, was first observed under construction on building ways at Chongjin in February 2025. By May 15, the ship had been moved to a position from which it could be launched. Unlike Nampho, Chongjin was not equipped with a floating drydock, and instead, was launched sideways, as is commonly done with commercial vessels built at this shipyard. According to a North Korean press report, Kim Jong Un attended the ship’s launch on May 21, but the ceremony did not go as planned. It explained:

Due to inexperienced command and operational carelessness in the course of the launch, the launch slide of the stern departed first and stranded as the bogie failed to move in parallel…and the bow failed to leave the slipway, leading to a serious accident.

Commercial satellite imagery from May 22 showed the ship lying on its side, with about two-thirds of the bow section still on land and the rest of the ship lying in the water, consistent with North Korea’s description of the cause of the accident.

Imagery from May 26, 29, and 31 showed ongoing efforts to save the destroyer, using cables, a barge crane, various support vessels (some apparently pumping water out of the ship), and air balloons. By June 2, however, the ship was upright, but with a good portion of the bow still on land. By June 5, the full ship was floating upright in the harbor off the launching quay, with a large number of balloons still attached to its deck.

On May 23, the North Korean press reported that the “extent of damage to the warship is not serious,” and that “there were no holes made at the warship’s bottom, the hull starboard was scratched and a certain amount of seawater flowed into the stern section.” According to the statement:

Experts estimated that it will take two or three days to keep the balance of the warship by pumping up the seawater from the flooded chamber and making the bow leave the slipway and 10-odd days to restore the warship’s side.

Imagery showed it took the North Koreans 10 to 12 days to right the ship. The fact that the ship is now seen floating on its own without tugs or barges aside suggests there were no serious holes in the ship’s hull, although it may have had a slight list to the port side. That said, it is unclear from imagery or open-source reporting how much damage the ship suffered beyond observable damage to its bow sonar dome and its superstructure or how long it will take to restore the ship to its pre-launch condition – much less to fully complete it. But the North Koreans seem to be well on their way to have the ship in “good enough” condition to be able to make a plausible case for meeting Kim’s May 21 instruction that “the restoration should be completed unconditionally before the June Plenary Meeting of the WPK [Workers Party of Korea] Central Committee.”

On June 6, North Korean press reported that the ship had later been moored at the pier and that it will be moved to Rajin Dockyard (in Rason, about 80 km up the coast) for some seven to 10 days of “next-stage elaborate restoration.” It reiterated “the perfect restoration of the destroyer will be completed without fail before the convening of the Twelfth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the WPK.” The ship was seen inside the Rajin drydock on June 8.

In the meantime, North Korea appears already to be making preparations for the construction of another ship—presumably another Choe Hyon class destroyer—at the Chongjin building ways, as well as another at Nampho. As Kim Jong Un noted at the first destroyer’s commissioning ceremony : “We will, of course, build warships of this class next year, too… We will execute this plan of building multi-mission destroyers year by year.”

Comparative Perspective on the North Korean Naval Build-Up

These recent developments provide some useful insights into North Korea’s naval shipbuilding capacity. First, the fact that North Korea was able to build not one but two ships of this class in little over one year is an accomplishment that should not to be downplayed. Currently, it takes South Korea’s best shipbuilding companies two to three years to construct a destroyer (also known as KDX) and major US shipbuilders like the Huntington Ingalls (HII) approximately five years to build its Arleigh Burke-class destroyers (DDG-51). There are notable differences in the specification of these vessels, and it should be stressed that the two Choe Hyons (especially the second) are still incomplete.

Specification Summary

When matched up, Choe Hyon-class destroyers are not equals to the latest KDX or the DDG-51s. However, the capacity to build these vessels grows with time and experience. For instance, the South Korean shipbuilders took about the same amount of time to construct a less sophisticated and lighter KDX-II as the larger and more sophisticated KDX-III. It was the know-how gained by assembling previous KDXs that allowed these companies to gain greater efficiency in constructing the larger and more sophisticated versions of these vessels. In essence, this experience became the manufacturing foundation for better equipped and more complex naval warships.

In a similar manner, if it took the North Korean shipyards a little over a year to build these 5,000-tonne destroyers to the point where they could be launched, then there is a good chance that they can build a more advanced complex variant in a similar time frame or learn to build the same vessels more quickly. It is not unreasonable to assume from this that the recent developments point to the capability for a more accelerated pace of North Korean naval build-up.

Finally, one important lesson from North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs is that the regime’s successful development of its weapons capabilities rests on years of multiple failed tests and trials. Subsequently, the recent failed launch of the second destroyer in Chongjin should be interpreted as a step towards the development of a more formidable North Korean navy in the near future.

North Korea’s Evolving Naval Ambitions: Context

North Korea has made efforts to modernize and build up the navy since the early days of Kim Jong Un’s reign, leading to the publicized testing of naval weapons systems as early as 2015 and the leader’s inspection of a “newly built” (albeit incomplete) diesel/electric ballistic missile submarine in 2019. North Korea’s naval ambitions became more pronounced during the Eighth Party Congress in January 2021, when Kim called for building “nuclear-powered submarine [sic] and underwater-launch nuclear strategic weapon [sic]” as part of a five-year defense development plan to be implemented by the end of 2025.

Kim’s navy- and shipbuilding-related public activities have increased significantly since his call for naval modernization at a navy unit in August 2023, showing that the navy has become a priority for the country, after more than two years since the Party Congress was held. Between then and the end of May 2025, Kim made 15 such appearances, seven of them in March, April, and May 2025 alone, mostly related to launches of corvettes or the new destroyers.[2] This exceeds the total of 13 similar appearances by Kim from his ascendance to power at the end of 2011 until August 2023.[3] The North’s renewed emphasis on naval capabilities in the summer of 2023 simply may be attributed to the five-year defense development’s timeline. However, it is worth noting that the timing corresponds with Pyongyang’s closer alignment with Moscow and Kim’s renewed emphasis on the munitions and defense industries.

North Korea’s commitment to build a nuclear-armed navy—implied before and during the Eighth Party Congress and explicitly confirmed by Kim himself in a speech at the Navy Command and a tour of a new “tactical nuclear attack submarine” in 2023 (reconfigured from the sub he inspected in 2019)—is notable for two reasons. First, Kim views a nuclear-armed navy as important for diversifying North Korea’s nuclear deterrent. He commented in January 2024 that “the nuclear weaponization of the navy is an urgent task … [and presented tasks for] expanding the sphere of operation of the state nuclear deterrence in a diversified way.” Second, North Korea’s bolder rhetoric on the scope of its naval operations reflects greater ambitions. In September 2023, Kim implied that his navy’s mission was no longer limited to defending territorial waters, saying its mission in the past was “restricted to defending our territorial waters in any case” but the “operational aspects of the Navy” had changed. Kim went further at the Choe Hyon-class destroyer commissioning ceremony in April 2025, noting the North Korean navy “can never limit its operations to our territorial waters to safeguard the national sovereignty and interests, but must stretch its fighting capability to the oceans.” As reasons for broadening the scope of North Korean maritime operations, he cited the possibility of having to a) stop the enemies’ additional troop deployments to the Korean Peninsula in a contingency, and b) launch preemptive strikes, which he claimed were “not limited to any place or to any line.”

North Korea appears to see another incentive for stepping up shipbuilding, commercial and naval: the economy. Kim Jong Un has regularly pointed to the shipbuilding industry or the improvement of naval ships as a key part of the Party’s “defense and economic” policy, similar to how he has tied the latter to the defense and munitions industries since August 2023.[4] Kim’s repeated references to the economic dimensions of the defense and munitions industries, including shipbuilding, suggest that North Korea views the revitalization of these two sectors as key to improving the economy. Kim may be attempting to make the case for how building submarines and warships can actually benefit the civilian economy. Proponents of greater defense spending in North Korea historically have argued that giving priority to the defense industry spurs growth in other sectors, such as light and heavy industries and agriculture, ultimately improving the economy as a whole. Defense versus civilian spending has long been a thorny issue in North Korea, and the country still seems to be contending with this question as Kim continues to step up defense build-up.

Conclusion

It may be some time before the North Korean navy becomes a credible threat to the region, but North Korea’s latest feat—successfully refloating a 5,000-tonne destroyer after a failed launch attempt in a matter of just 15 days—only reminds us that the country tends sooner or later to achieve in at least some form what it sets out to do. While North Korea’s two Choe Hyon-class destroyers may not yet match the sophistication of their South Korean or US counterparts, the pace with which they were built suggests North Korean shipyards are gaining the expertise needed to produce more advanced warships in the near future as part of an accelerated naval buildup, coupled with North Korea’s greater ambition to build a nuclear-armed navy capable of operating beyond territorial waters.

1. [1]

   See Peter Makowsky, Jack Liu, Iliana Ragnone and Martyn Williams, “Nampho Port: Newest Naval Combatant Likely Left the Hall,” 38 North, April 9, 2025, https://www.38north.org/2025/04/nampho-port-newest-naval-combatant-likely-left-the-hall; Joseph Dempsey, “North Korean shipyard’s undercover mystery,” Military Balance Blog, International Institute for Strategic Studies, October 30, 2024, https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/military-balance/2024/10/north-korean-shipyards-undercover-mystery; and Joost Oliemans, “With new frigates, North Korea broadcasts a more assertive naval approach,” NK Pro, March 20, 2025, https://www.nknews.org/pro/with-new-frigates-north-korea-broadcasts-a-more-assertive-naval-approach.

2. [2]

   Although omitted from North Korean media’s readout of the 2024 year-end Party plenary meeting, it was later revealed the Party at the time made a decision to build “modern destroyer [sic].” See “Ceremony of Launching Destroyer of KPA Navy Takes Place with Splendor,” KCNA, April 26, 2025, http://kcna.co.jp/item/2025/202504/news26/20250426-01ee.html.

3. [3]

   These appearances are limited to Kim’s appearances at naval units and ship- or submarine-commissioning and related events; tours of ships or submarines; and visits to shipbuilding yards. They exclude Kim’s appearances at naval weapons systems and engine tests. Data derived from the South Korean Unification Ministry’s listing of Kim Jong Un’s public appearances, “김정은 위원장 공개활동 동향 [Trends of Chairman Kim Jong Un’s Public Activities],” at https://nkinfo.unikorea.go.kr/nkp/kje/view.do.

4. [4]

   See “Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Gives Field Guidance to Major Munitions Factories,” KCNA, August 6, 2023, http://kcna.co.jp/item/2023/202308/news06/20230806-01ee.html; “Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Makes Congratulatory Speech at Ceremony for Launching Newly-Built Submarine,” KCNA, September 8, 2023, http://kcna.co.jp/item/2023/202309/news08/20230908-02ee.html; “Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Gives Field Guidance to Nampho Dockyard,” KCNA, February 2, 2024, http://kcna.co.jp/item/2024/202402/news02/20240202-01ee.html; and “Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Inspects Major Shipyards to Learn about Warship-building and Advance Strategic Policy for Epochal Development in Shipbuilding Industry,” KCNA, March 8, 2025, http://kcna.co.jp/item/2025/202503/news08/20250308-01ee.html.  North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) has used both “defence and economic” and “defence economic” in its English reports for the same terminology in the vernacular: “국방경제 [kukpang kyongje].”