I may be late to this party, but I suspect that it's hard to convey all the details of a particular MegaCorp and it's internal workings in a brief post. I have worked in companies where the "manager" was responsible for the subordinates and all their work, but the allocation of resources was not controlled by the manager and often specific tasks were doled out through some "matrix management" system, that made the manager responsible for things the manager might not even know the subordinate was working on. I have no idea if any of this applies here and I'm always against the "lose your cool" approach either up or down the organization, but I suspect this situation may not be as clear cut as many responses make it seem. With remote staff, an assignment that is monitored by higher ups directly in touch with the staff not working through the manager, a deadline that was met, and some confusion about status of the task or assistance offered or needed, there seems like a lot that could be investigated to improve performance in the future. If there was a requested deadline, but an unspoken desire to have the work well before that deadline, then that miscommunication is one more item to look at in the postmortem.
Whatever OP decides to do, public outbursts up the management chain are usually not a good idea. You may in the doghouse less for the almost missed deadline, but more for the verbal out of control moment. If it were me, I would be working to mend fences and taking an active, visible role in analyzing what about this situation didn't meet the needs of the company and risk to the potentially expensive deadline so you can champion any changes needed to make sure this works more smoothly in the future. Having a problem and fixing it is good in most companies. Denying a problem that senior managers fret about, even if you are right, isn't usually going to make things any better.
I also got the impression from the original post, that you may be at or near your tolerance level for BS and corporate politics. If you have a way to unwind a little or not let that get to you, it might be easier to understand the other points of view, both from your subordinate and your higher management.