North Korea's ballistic missile launch to East Sea apparently fails: JCS

North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the East Sea on Wednesday, the South's military said, but it apparently failed.

A contrail from a presumed North Korean intermediate-range ballistic missile Wednesday morning is seen over waters near Yeonpyeong Island in Incheon. [YONHAP]

North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the East Sea on Wednesday, the South's military said, but it apparently failed.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) stated that an unidentified missile was launched from the Pyongyang area at around 5:30 a.m. toward the East Sea but is assumed to have failed.

It added that South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities are conducting further analysis of the latest launch.

Officials said that North Korea might have test-fired a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) using a solid-fuel engine, which failed to fly normally.

A JCS official later said that the North launched a single missile believed to have flown around 250 kilometers before exploding midair over the East Sea, some 70 to 80 kilometers from Wonsan in Kangwon Province.

Fragments fell into the sea, the official added.

This comes after North Korea announced that it had successfully test-fired a solid-fuel engine hypersonic missile earlier this year, and South Korean officials said Pyongyang may have conducted tests to further develop it.

A contrail from a presumed North Korean intermediate-range ballistic missile Wednesday morning is seen over waters near Yeonpyeong Island in Incheon. [YONHAP]

Wednesday's missile was seen to have emitted more smoke than usual and was spotted from South Korea's northwestern islands, such as Baengnyeong Island and Yeonpyeong Island, and even from parts of Gyeonggi like Paju and Yeoncheon.

Military analysis indicates that there could have been a problem with the propellant engine, as it was flying abnormally.

On Saturday, the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt arrived at a naval base in Busan to take part in a trilateral exercise with South Korea and Japan. North Korea slammed the arrival of the carrier as a "provocative act."

The carrier's arrival came ahead of the first multidomain Freedom Edge exercise, which kicks off Wednesday to better respond to Pyongyang's threats.

On Tuesday, the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War, President Yoon Suk Yeol boarded the aircraft carrier.

North Korea sent more trash balloons to the South on Tuesday for the second consecutive day.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]