How about using redo and a c-style for loop?

my (@array, $i);
@array = <FILE>;
for ($i = 0; $i <= $#array; $i++) {
  if ($i > 0 and $array[$i] =~ /\bfail\b/) {
    splice @array, $i - 1, 1;
    redo;
  }
}
[download]

--
integral, resident of freenode's #perl