n the United States, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia-Pacific Security Affairs Peter Lavoy said to the House Armed Services Committee that North Korea had indicated the rocket would be launched southward, but the US lacked confidence about the rocket’s stability and where the impact of debris would be. He said it was probably intended to land somewhere close to the Philippines or maybe Indonesia. He also said that South Korea and the Japanese island of Okinawa could also be affected and that the debris could fall on their countries and cause casualties.[47]
Air traffic control authorities in North and South Korea issued warnings to aircraft associated with North Korea’s planned rocket launch. The warnings followed a message issued one week earlier by authorities in The Philippines concerning restrictions on airspace during the 12–16 April launch window. North Korea’s authorities have closed a route that runs across the sky to the south of the Sohae launch facility between two navigation waypoints named "Bodok" and "Tomuk".[48]
On Friday, 23 March, Pyongyang's foreign ministry spokesman said preparations for the rocket launch "have entered a full-fledged stage of action".[49] On 26 March it was reported that the rocket was moved to a launch pad in the Sohae Launching Station[50] using a train.[49][1] The provider of high resolution satellite imagery DigitalGlobe took a photo on Wednesday, 28 March, showing what appears to be trucks near the North Korean launch pad, while a crane arm on the tower had been swung wide.[51] A day later, on 29 March, it was reported North Korea had begun filling the rocket with liquid fuel.[52][53] An analysis provided to the Associated Press by the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies on 5 April asserted that evidence suggests the first stage might be in the launch stand's closed gantry ahead of the planned launch on 12–16 April: the evidence, contained in satellite photos taken on 4 April, suggested the completion of fuelling activity, with most of the empty fuel and oxidizer tanks removed from buildings supplying the first stage, a new barricade for vehicles on the road to the pad indicating higher security, and the removal of objects near the gantry and a clean-up of the launch pad.[54] On 10 April North Ryu Kum Chol, deputy director of the Space Development Department of the Korean Committee for Space Technology told reporters at a news conference in Yanggakdo Hotel, Pyongyang, that the launch of the three-stage rocket was on target to take place between 12 and 16 April and that all the assembly and preparations of the satellite launch were done, including fueling of the rocket.[55][56] On 11 April 2012, Paek Chang Ho, head of the General Satellite Control Center, briefed journalists inside the center on Pyongyang's outskirts about the coming launch.
Lift-off was cancelled on 12 April due to bad weather.
On 13 April, at 7:38:55 am KST, lift-off was made. Ninety seconds after liftoff, the rocket exploded and crashed into the Yellow Sea near Gunsan, South Korea.[57]
