Heads are sure to roll in Pyongyang as North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, seeks scapegoats for the humiliating failure of the launch of a sleek new destroyer that was supposed to be the pride of the North Korean naval fleet. 

During a ceremony to which foreign ambassadors and top-level aides were invited, “a serious accident occurred in the launch of the destroyer,” the North Korean propaganda machine, not given to reporting bad news, had to admit. 

Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency blamed the accident on the stern slipping down too fast during an unusual sidewise launch in which the entire ship’s bottom was supposed to slide into the water at once, bow to stern. “Holes made at some sections of the warship’s bottom disrupted its balance, and the bow failed to leave the slipway, leading to a serious accident,” KCNA said. 

KCNA blamed the accident on “inexperienced command and operational carelessness,” but too bad for the bureaucrats, engineers, technicians, and dockyard workers who were at the scene. Mr. Kim was on hand, beaming with pride and ready to shower them with praise when the unthinkable happened: Disaster stole the show. 

“After watching the whole course of the accident,” KCNA said in English, Mr. Kim, in a “stern assessment,” pronounced what he had seen “a serious accident and criminal act” that “could not be tolerated.” Forgiveness and understanding apparently not being part of the North Korean leader’s DNA, he immediately rattled off a list of “relevant officials” whose “irresponsibility” he blamed for “the errors” that led to the accident. 

If he lives up to his word, as he has often done in the past, members of the Workers Party munitions industry department, the Academy of Sciences’ mechanical institute, the University of Technology, the Central Ship Design Institute, and the shipyard at the east coast port of Chongjin, where the ship was manufactured, are all on notice. Judging from past precedent, executions, long imprisonments, and “reeducation” or heavy labor under grueling conditions are all likely forms of punishment. 

KCNA left no doubt the accident was more than a blip or a live-and-learn occurrence. What could be worse, as Mr. Kim put it, than to have “lowered the dignity and self-respect of our state in a moment.” The perpetrators would have to be “dealt with at the plenary meeting of the Party Central Committee, “ of which Mr. Kim, of course, is general secretary.

Quite aside from promising swift punishment for all the miscreants, Mr. Kim set a meeting of the party’s central committee in June as the deadline for restoring the vessel. At stake are not just “practical” concerns, he said, “but a political issue directly related to the prestige of the state.”  In other words, the regime lost face before the world — the worst kind of humiliation.

Whether the 5,000-ton ship can be repaired and launched in that time frame, though, is highly doubtful. Satellite photos have shown the vessel on its side, much of it under water. Just getting it back into the drydock for reconstruction will not be easy. 

A blitzkrieg of propaganda showed the incredible importance attached to the 5,000-ton vessel. As the ceremony was about to take place, KCNA republished a 4,800-word speech by Mr. Kim and a separate 2,800-word article telling the world, in official English translation, of the launch last month of a similar destroyer at the west coast port of Nampo. 

“Special Event Representing Significant Breakthrough in Modernization of Navy in New Era Ceremony of Launching Destroyer … Takes Place with Splendour,” the headline said. The first sentence hailed “the tremendous strength of Juche [Self-Reliant] Korea, which confidently attains the phased goals for building a rich country with a strong army.” The article foresaw “a grand new era of an advanced maritime power while powerfully reaching out to the vast ocean.”

 Presumably, KCNA was ready to pump out a similar article — along with another euphoric speech by Mr. Kim — when rudely interrupted by the fiasco of the launch at Chongjin. As if to compensate for the failure, the North Koreans test-fired cruise missiles from a launch site down the east coast, a routine that attracted little notice.