SEOUL: North Korea's long-range Taepodong-2 missile spent seven minutes in the air, a South Korean military official said yesterday, after repeated US statements that it failed after just 42 seconds.

Lee Sung-Kyu, a top intelligence officer at South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the missile had a smooth flight of 42 seconds but spent a total of seven minutes in the air over the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

"The Taepodong-2 crashed due to some trouble after travelling for seven minutes including a 42-second normal flight," he testified at a National Assembly committee.

The early landing of the Taepodong-2 - capable of flying over 6,700km to bring Alaska and Hawaii into range - sparked questions over whether the flight was a technical failure or was aborted.

North Korea has hailed the launch of seven missiles on Wednesday as "successful," rebuffing allegations that the long-range missile launch was a failure.

US officials had mocked the test, with White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley saying "a missile that fails after 40 seconds is not a threat to the territory of the United States." North Korea's 1998 test of the Taepodong-1 sent shockwaves through Washington and Tokyo by flying some 1,500km over Japan into the Pacific.