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A Eureka Moment for Two Times Reporters: North Korea’s Missile Launches Were Failing Too Often
By DAVID E. SANGER
MARCH 6, 2017
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This still image released in January purportedly shows a missile launched off the coast of North Korea igniting in mid-air on Dec. 21, 2015. North Korea had previously dubbed this event a “successful” ballistic missile test.
KCTV / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
WASHINGTON — The launches were failing too often.
That was the topic of the conversation I was having one day late last spring with Bill Broad, one of The Times’s premier science writers. Just about every time the North Koreans tried to launch an advanced missile, it seemed to end up in the ocean seconds later. Maybe it was bad luck, we said to each other, or bad parts, or bad welding. After all, the North Koreans are not known for quality-control. Or maybe something else was going on.
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