Korean Air Lines Flight 007

For the LOT Polish Airlines incident with the same flight number, see LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007.

Korean Air Lines Flight 007

A computer rendering of HL7442, the KAL 747 lost during Flight 007.
Occurrence
Date	September 1, 1983
Summary	Airliner shoot down
Site	West of Sakhalin Island 46°34′N 141°17′E
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Boeing 747-230B
Operator	Korean Air Lines
Registration	HL7442
Flight origin	John F. Kennedy International Airport New York City, New York USA
Last stopover	Anchorage International Airport Anchorage, Alaska USA
Destination	Gimpo International Airport, Seoul South Korea
Passengers	240
Crew	29
Fatalities	269
Survivors	0

Korean Air Lines Flight 007, also known as KAL 007, was a Korean Air Lines civilian airliner shot down by Soviet jet interceptors on September 1, 1983 just west of Sakhalin island. 269 passengers and crew, including US congressman Lawrence McDonald, were aboard KAL 007; there were no known survivors.

The Soviet Union stated that the aircraft had entered Soviet airspace as a deliberate provocation by the United States, the purpose being to test its military response capabilities, repeating the provocation of Korean Air Flight 902, also shot down by Soviet aircraft over the Kola Peninsula in 1978.

The incident attracted a storm of protest from across the world, particularly from the United States.

Flight and passenger information

Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was a commercial Boeing 747-230B (registration: HL7442, formerly D-ABYH, was previously operated by Condor Airlines) flying from New York City, United States to Seoul, South Korea. The aircraft—piloted by Chun Byung-in—departed Gate 15, 35 minutes behind its scheduled departure time of 11:50 P.M. local time, and took off from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on August 31. After refueling at Anchorage International Airport in Anchorage, Alaska, the aircraft departed for Seoul while carrying 240 passengers and 29 crew at 13:00 GMT (3:00 AM local time) on September 1. KAL 007 flew westward and then turned south on a course for Seoul-Kimpo International Airport that took it much farther west than planned, cutting across the Soviet Kamchatka Peninsula and then over the Sea of Okhotsk towards Sakhalin, violating Soviet airspace more than once.

Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Senator Steven Symms of Idaho, and Representative Carroll J. Hubbard Jr. of Kentucky were to have joined Larry McDonald onboard KAL 007 but they accepted a later flight on KAL 015 in order to meet other commitments . Four of the people who boarded in New York, Robert Sears, his wife, and two children, left the aircraft in Anchorage; Sears had vacationed in New York with his family. Acclaimed Toronto-based chef, Susur Lee's first wife was also aboard.

63 Americans died in the shootdown. 23 of the passengers were children under 12 years of age.

The flight attendants included fourteen women and two men. 12 passengers occupied the upper deck first class. Passengers occupied almost all of the 24 business class seats. In economy class almost 80 seats had no passengers. 130 passengers planned to connect to other destinations such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Taiwan; they flew Korean Air Lines due to its fares.

Nationalities

Nationality	Passengers	Crew	Total
Republic of China	48	0	48
Japan	54	0	54
South Korea	62	29	91
Republic of China (Taiwan)	11	0	11
United States	65	0	65
Total	240	29	269

Interception

The Sukhoi Su-15, NATO codename Flagon, was a Soviet interceptor.

The following reconstruction of events is largely based on information provided by the US State Department and the ICAO.

Soviet air defense units had been tracking the aircraft for more than an hour while it entered and left Soviet airspace over the Kamchatka Peninsula. Two Su-15 Flagon interceptors, scrambled from Dolinsk-Sokol airbase.

Timeline of attack:

• 17:53 GMT - First documented order for shootdown. General Anatoli Kornukov, Commander of Sokol Air base on Sakhalin to the command post of General Valeri Kamenski, Commander of Air Defense Forces for the Far East Military District, “…simply destroy [it] even if it is over neutral waters? Are the orders to destroy it over neutral waters? Oh, well.”
• 18:15 GMT - "KE007 requested FL [flight level] 350 [35,000 feet]".
• 18:20 GMT - "Tokyo Radio transmitted the clearance for the aircraft to climb to this level.
• 18:22:40-55 GMT - As power is diverted from velocity to lift, KAL 007 decreases speed and Maj. Ospiovich in his Su-15 draws abeam of the target. He will drop back and behind to fire the missiles. Lt. Col. Titovnin (Combat Controller): "805, open fire on target". Maj. Osipovich: "It should have been earlier. How can I chase it? I’m already abeam of the target". Titovnin: "Roger, if possible, take up a position for attack". Osipovich: "Now I have to fall back a bit from the target"..
• 18:23 GMT - "KE007 reported reaching FL 350" .
• 18:24 GMT - KAL 007 is seen by Gen. Kornukov about to successfully leave Soviet air space. Gen. Kornukov: "Oh, [obscenities] how long [does it take him] to attack position, he is already going out into neutral waters. Engage afterburner immmediately. Bring in the MiG 23 as well...While you are wasting time, it will fly right out."
• 18:26 GMT - Major Gennadie Osipovich, pilot of the lead aircraft, fired 120 rounds of ammunition in four 30-round bursts from his cannon. The lack of tracers made them invisible to the 747, which continued on its course. Moments later he fired a missile (proximity fused) which exploded 50 meters behind KAL 007, the elevator cross over cable was either severed or unraveled causing an arc upward of one minute and 13 seconds - from 35,000 ft. to 38,250 ft. and down again to below 35,000. Captain Chun then brought KAL 007, pulling up for 10 seconds, out of a sharp descent back to 35,000 ft.,
• 18:26 GMT - Major Gennadie Osipovich, lead Soviet pilot, mistakenly (as subsequent Russian real-time military telecommunications show) reports: "The target is destroyed." .
• 18:26:06-11 GMT - First words after attack of Pilot and Co-Pilot: Captain Chun- "What happened?". First Officer Son- "What?". Chun- "Retard throttles." Son- "Engines normal, sir." Indicating that Maj. Osipovich's heat seeking missile did not destroy any of the 4 engines. Son will again report engines normal at 18:26:45
• 18:26 GMT - Immediate Soviet awareness that target is not destroyed. Lt. Col Novoseltski: "Well, what is happening, what is the matter, who guided him in, he locked on, why didn't he shoot it down?"
• 18:26:46 GMT - Captain Chun of KAL 007 was able to turn off the autopilot and take manual control. "Emergency procedures call for saying 'Mayday' three times, followed by other information about the nature of the emergency ... The cockpit crew should have continued broadcasting until the last possible moment to help lead rescuers to the plane's location" .
• 18:27:10 - 18:27:25 GMT - "Tokyo Radio received a partly intelligible transmission from KE007. After extensive analysis and filtering of noise, the following words were discernible: Korean Air zero zero seven ... (unintelligible) ... rapid compressions ... (unintelligible) ... descending to one zero thousand [10,000 feet].".
• 18:27:20 GMT - At 1 minute and 44 seconds into the post-missile-detonation phase of flight which lasts for 12 minutes, both the KAL 007's CVR and DFDR tapes handed over by the Russians simultaneously cease their recorded material. These are the last recorded words from the CVR - 18:27:20- "Now... we have to set this.", 18:27:23: "speed." 18:27:26-: "Stand by, stand by, stand by, stand by. set!"
• 18:28 GMT - KAL 007 makes its first post-detonation deviation from flight path by turning to the north. Lt. Gerasimienko: "The target turned to the north." Gen. Kornukov: "The target turned to the north?" Gerasimienko: "Affirmative." Kornukov: "Bring the 23 [MiG] in to destroy it!"
• 18:29:13 GMT - The Soviet pilots unsuccessfully try to locate the wreckage of KAL 007 stating: "I don't see it."
• 18:29 GMT - Gen. Kornukov after being told both missiles had been launched and KAL 007 had turned north - "Well, I understand, I do not understand the result, why is the target flying? Missiles were fired. Why is the target flying? [obscenities] Well, what is happening?"
• 18:29:54 GMT - Another Soviet pilot says of their target: "No I don't see it.".
• 18:30 GMT - KAL 007 was reported by radar at 5,000 meters (16,424 feet).
• 18:33 GMT - KAL 007 is seen by Soviet radar at 5,000 meters at intial stage of spiral descent over Moneron Island. Lt. Col. Gerasimenko. "Altitude of target is 5,000." General Kornukov: "5,000 already?" Gerasimenko (18:34): "Affirmative, turning left, right, apparently it is descending."
• 18:34 GMT - Last recorded location of KAL 007 in spiral descent over Moneron Island is within Soviet territorial waters. "Where is it now", "It is in the Moneron area", "In our territory?", "Affirmative"
• 18:35 GMT - KAL 007 begins spiral descent over Moneron Island after having attained level flight for almost 5 minutes "The last plotted radar position of the target was 18:35 hours at 5,000 meters."
• 18:36 - General Kornukov:"...you know the range, where the target is. It is over Moneron..."
• 18:38 GMT - KAL 007 disappeared from the radar screen (approximately 12 minutes after the initial attack).. Soviet radar personnel stationed at Komsomolsk-na-Amura on the Siberian maritime reported KAL 007 disappearing from radar screen at 18:38 at 1,000 ft. altitude due to radar inability to track below that altitude. A free fall from 35,000 feet would take a similar aircraft approximately 2 minutes.
• 18:38:37 GMT - The first Soviet Pilot reiterates: "I don't see anything in this area. I just looked." With fuel running low the Soviet jets return to their base without sighting the remains of their target.

Soviet ships head for anticipated site that KAL 007 would reach the water while the aircraft was in the air. Izvestia testimony of a Soviet Naval Specialist, "When we learned that the aircraft had been attacked, and that weapons had been used, we began to analyse when it might possibly come down. Ships were ordered to the anticipated area. Several ships headed there at once at full speed..."

18:47 GMT - First ICAO documented Soviet SAR (Search and Rescue) mission: involving the KGB Border Guard boats and rescue helicopters (Khomutovo air base). " Lt. Col. Novoseltski: prepare whatever helicopters there are . Rescue helicopters. Lt. Col. Titovnin:Rescue? Lt. Col. Novoseltski: Yes..." Titovnin: "Novoaleksandrovska must be brought to readiness and Khomutovo. The border guards and KGB are at Khomutovo."

18:55 GMT - Second SAR mission: in addition to the borderguards and helicopters, civilian ships "near" Moneron were sent to Moneron itself. General Strogov (Deputy Commander oif Far East Military District): "The border guards. What ships do we have near Moneron Island, if they are civilian. send [them] there immediately."

Soviet harassment of U.S. search and rescue

From early in September until the beginning of November, the US with the Japanese and South Koreans carried out joint Search and Rescue and then Search and Salvage operations. These missions met increasing hostile interference by the Soviets. These harassments and hostile activites, all in violation of the 1972 Incident at Sea agreement, included the following: false flag and fake light signals, sending an armed boarding party to threaten to board a U.S. chartered Japanese auxiliary vessel (blocked by U.S. warship interposition), moving U.S. sonars, setting false "pingers" in deep international waters, sending Backfire bombers armed with air-to-surface nuclear-armed missiles to threaten U.S. naval units, and radar lock-ons by a Soviet missile cruiser and a destroyer targeting U.S. naval vessels.

For the dramatic eyewitness account of cruelty and of bravery during the Search and Rescue/Salvage operations, see [2]

Crash scene

According to the ICAO: "The location of the main wreckage was not determined ... The approximate position was 46°34′N 141°17'E, which was in international waters." This point is about 41 miles from Moneron Island and about 45 miles from the shore of Sakhalin 33 miles from the point of attack

It was reported at the time that "Russian naval and air search units ... have barred the U.S. and Japanese search forces from the exact area where the 747 is believed to have crashed, even though that spot is beyond the 12-mi. territorial limit from Sakhalin Island."

Here are the After Action Report statements, however, of the Commander of the U.S. Search and Rescue/Salvage Task Force 71 of the 7th Fleet, Admiral Walter Piotti, to his belief that KAL 007 had not come down in international waters but rather in Soviet territorial waters: "Had TF [task force] 71 been permitted to search without restriction imposed by claimed territorial waters, the aircraft stood a good chance of having been found.”...“No wreckage of KAL 007 was found. However, the operation established, with a 95% or above confidence level, that the wreckage, or any significant portion of the aircraft, does not lie within the probability area outside the 12 nautical miles area claimed by the Soviets as their territorial limit.”

Lynn Helms,Federal Aviation Administrator, stated at a hearing of ICAO on Sept. 15, 1983 that "the U.S.S.R.has refused to permit search and rescue units from other countries to enter Soviet territorial waters to search for the remains of KAL 007. Moreover, the Soviet Union has blocked access to the likely crash site and has refused to cooperate with other interested parties, to ensure prompt recovery of all technical equipment, wreckage and other material."

Six days later, the Soviets turned over another non-human 76 items. On December 19, 1983, the Soviets surrendered yet another 83 small items, bringing the total of all items recovered to 1,020 Life magazine reported: "The Russians picked up 18 articles of clothing and sent them to Japan -- but only after having them drycleaned."

The Human Remains

Surface

No bodies, body parts or tissues were reported recovered by the Russians from the surface of the sea in their own territorial waters and none were recovered by the US-S. Korean-Japanese Search and Rescue/Salvage operations in international waters at designated crash site and within 225 sq. nautical mile search area.

Subsurface

Since there was a total absence of human remains (as well as a total absence of luggage) both on the surface of the sea in the 225 sq. miles of probability impact area in international waters and in the Soviet territorial waters, it was thought that passengers and luggage would be found incarcerated in the wreckage of the aircraft below the surface at the final resting place of jumbo jet. But from within the wreckage of KAL 007 at an undesignated location at the bottom of the sea(see below divers reports), out of the 269 occupants of the aircraft, there were only 10 encounters with passenger remains (tissues and body parts) and one partial torso (disemboweled).

In 1991 Izvestia published a series of interviews with civilian divers who had visited the wreckage of KAL 007 and the assumed resting place of its 269 passengers and crew on the ocean floor near Moneron Island starting 7 days after the shootdown:

“I did not miss a single dive. I have quite a clear impression: The aircraft was filled with garbage, but there were really no people there. Why? Usually when an aircraft crashes, even a small one... As a rule there are suitcases and bags, or at least the handles of the suitcases.” From Captain Mikhail Igorevich Girs’ diary: "Submergence 10 October. Aircraft pieces, wing spars, pieces of aircraft skin, wiring, and clothing. But—no people. The impression is that all of this has been dragged here by a trawl rather than falling down from the sky". "So we were ready to encounter a virtual cemetery. But one submergence went by, then the second, and then the third... During the entire rather lengthy period of our work near Moneron, I and my people had maybe ten encounters with the remains of Boeing passengers. No more than that."

At Wakkanai and Hokkaido beaches, Japan

Eight days after the the shootdown, human remains appeared on the north shore of Hokkaido. Hokkaido began about 30 miles below the southern tip of Sakhalin across the Soya Straits (the southern tip of Sakhalin was 35 miles from Moneron Island up to the west of Sakhalin). These human remains, including body parts, tissues, and two partial torsos, totaled 13 in number. All were unidentifiable but one partial torso was that of a Caucasian women - indicated by auburn hair on a partial skull, and one partial body was of an Asian child (with glass imbedded) There was no luggage recovered. Of the non human remains that the Japanese recovered were various items including dentures, newspapers, seats, books, 8 "KAL" paper cups, shoes, sandals, and sneakers, a camara case, a "please fasten seat belt" sign, an oxygen mask, a handbag, a bottle of dish washing fluid, several blouses, an identity card belonging to 25 year old passenger Mary Jane Hendrie (for photo and write up, see [3]) of Sault Ste. Marie, Canada, and the business card of passenger Kathy Brown-Spier . All of these items came from only one section of KAL 007 - the passenger cabin including the 747's distinctive hump.

Crash Comparisons

A comparable 747 crash, after plunging 31,000 ft. into the Irish Sea on June 23, 1985, Air India Flight 182 with 329 passengers onboard, yielded: 131 bodies in 2 days, with one more strapped to his seat being recovered 4 months later, and many huge pieces of the airliner (about four tons in all). Recovery rate of Air India 182 was 40%. Nearly three weeks after that incident, the in-flight voice recorder and in-flight data recorder were retrieved

Another comparable 747 crash was TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, N.Y. on July 17, 1996. All 230 crew and passengers perished and all 230 bodies recovered over a one year period - the last two being identified by DNA.

A third comparable 747 crash was South African Airways Flight 295 on Nov. 28, 1987 into the Indian Ocean. Of its 159 occupants, 15 bodies were recovered. Recovery rate was 10%. Luggage and debris floated on surface of sea in 150 sq. mile radius for days.

Other than KAL 007, there has been no documented crash (not of a plane gone missing) in which there have not been at the designated crash site on the surface of the sea, bodies, body parts or body tissue (sometimes as much as 15,000), as well as luggage.

Early reports

On September 1, 1983, the New York Times noted: "Early reports said the plane ... had been forced down by Soviet Air Force planes and that all 240 passengers and 29 crew members were believed to be safe." "Korean Foreign Ministry officials cited the United States Central Intelligence Agency as the source for the report that the plane had been forced down on Sakhalin, but American officials in Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington said they could not confirm or deny that report." The informant reported that "the plane had landed at Sakhalin. The crew and passengers are safe." .

Aviation Week & Space Technology for September 5, 1983, reported that Korean Air Lines had sent another aircraft "to pick up the passengers and bring them to South Korea."

Investigations

Initial ICAO report

Map showing the divergence of planned and actual flightpaths

The initial International Civil Aviation Organization investigation into KAL 007 was not given access to the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) or the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CFR) but rather transcripts of the CFR. The ICAO released their initial report Dec. 2, 1983, which concluded that the violation of Soviet airspace was accidental: The autopilot had been set to heading hold after departing Anchorage. See Air navigation An inflight navigational error]. It was determined that the crew did not notice this error or subsequently perform navigational checks that would have revealed that the aircraft was diverging further and further from its assigned route. This was later deemed to be caused by a "lack of situational awareness and flight deck coordination".

According to a U.S. Department of State transcript of the shoot down reported by the New York Times, the pilot who shot the plane, Gennady Osipovich, stated that he fired multiple bursts from his cannon prior to releasing the two missiles. The pilot admitted there were no tracers, and these shots could not have been seen by the KAL 007 crew. The Soviets officially maintained that they had attempted radio contact with the airliner and that KAL 007 failed to reply. No other aircraft or ground monitors covering those emergency frequencies at the time reported hearing any such Soviet radio calls. The Soviet pilot reported that KAL 007 was flashing navigation lights, which should have suggested that the plane was civilian. The United States used RC-135s to spy on Russia, and, according to an earlier account, Osipovich feared that the plane could have been an RC-135. But in his later 1996 account, Osipovich acknowledged that he knew KAL 007 was a Boeing: "I saw two rows of windows and knew that this was a Boeing. I knew this was a civilian plane. But for me this meant nothing. It is easy to turn a civilian type of plane into one for military use."

Revised ICAO report

On November 18, 1992 Russian President Boris Yeltsin, after a request from American senator Jesse Helms, released both the FDR and CVR of KAL 007 to South Korean President Roh Tae-woo. Initial South Korean research showed the FDR to be empty and the CVR to have an unintelligible copy. The Russians then released the "original recordings" to the ICAO. The ICAO Report continued to support the initial assertion that KAL 007 accidentally flew in Soviet airspace, after listening to the flight crew's conversations recorded by the CVR.

In addition, the Russian Federation released "Transcript of Communications. USSR Air Defence Command Centres on Sakhalin Island" transcripts to ICAO and these are appended to the ICAO '93 Report itself and provided material for analysis for the report. These transcripts (of a number of tracks recordings on two reels) are time specified, some to the second, of the communications between the various command posts and other military facilites on Sakhalin from the time of the initial orders for the shootdown and then through the stalking of KAL 007 by Maj. Osipovoich in his Sukhoi 15 interceptor, the attack as seen and "commented on" by General Kornukov, Commander of Sokol Air Base, down the ranks to the Combat Contoller Lt. Col. Titovnin, the post-attack flight of KAL 007 until it had reached Moneron Island, the descent of KAL 007 over Moneron, the initial Soviet SAR missions to Moneron, the futile search of the "support" interceptors for KAL 007 on the water, and ending with the debriefing of Osipovich on return to base. Some of the communications are the telephone conversations between superior officers and subordinants and involve commands to them, while other communications involve the recorded responses to what was then being viewed on radar tracking KAL 007. These multi-track communications from various command posts telecommunicating at the same minute and seconds as other command posts were communicating provide a "composite" picture of what was taking place .

The Black Box tapes

The first ICAO Report, released on Dec. 2, 1983, contained this statement by the Soviet Government, "No remains of the victims, the instruments or their components or the flight recorders have so far been discovered" . This was a lie as Boris Yeltsin's release of the earlier Nov. 1983 Memo from KGB head V. Chebrikov and Defense MInister D. Ustinov to Yuri Andropov, would show, "In the third decade of October this year the equipment in question (the recorder of in-flight parameters and the recorder of voice communications by the flight crew with ground air traffic surveillance stations and between themselves) was brought aboard a search vessel and forwarded to Moscow by air for decoding and translation at the Air Force Scientific Research Institute." Thus, the Soviets not only had recovered the black box at least a month and a half prior to the time that they had reported to ICAO that there were no recovered "remains of the victims, the instruments or their components or the flight recorders", but their search up through the beginning of November for KAL 007 and the Black Box was seen to be a hoax. The Black Box tapes eventually handed over (after 9 years of denial) to the ICAO investigators by the Russian Federation were of only the first minute and 44 seconds of KAL 007's post missile detonation 12 minute flight. The remaining minutes of flight would be supplied by the Russian Federation 1992 submission to ICAO of the real-time Soviet military communication of the shootdown and aftermath.

American reaction

US President Ronald Reagan condemned the shoot down on September 5, 1983, calling it the "Korean airline massacre," a "crime against humanity [that] must never be forgotten" and an "act of barbarism … [and] inhuman brutality." In an act that surprised many within the US intelligence community, the US delegation to the United Nations played tapes of intercepted communications between Soviet fighter pilots and their ground control. While not publicly claimed, it is almost certain that these communications were originally encrypted.

And make no mistake about it; this attack was not just against ourselves or the Republic of Korea. This was the Soviet Union against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere. It was an act of barbarism, born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations. They deny the deed, but in their conflicting and misleading protestations, the Soviets reveal that, yes, shooting down a plane—even one with hundreds of innocent men, women, children, and babies—is a part of their normal procedure if that plane is in what they claim as their airspace.

On September 15, President Reagan ordered the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to revoke the license of Aeroflot Soviet Airlines to operate flights into and out of the United States. As a result, Aeroflot flights to North America were only available through cities in Canada or Mexico. Aeroflot service to the United States was not restored until April 29, 1986.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick, commissioned an audio-visual presentation in the Security Council using tapes of the Soviet radio conversations and a map of the plane's flight path to depict the shoot-down as savage and unjustified. Alvin A. Snyder, producer of the video, later revealed in a September 1, 1996 article in the Washington Post that he was given only selected portions of the tape of the Soviet military conversation that led to the downing of the aircraft.

Airway R20 (Romeo 20), the flight path that Korean Air Flight 007 was supposed to fly, which came within 17 miles of Soviet airspace at its closest point, was closed after the accident on September 2. This reflected shock, and the need to reassure the public. However, pilots and airlines fiercely resisted and the route was reopened on October 2. More significantly, the US decided to utilize military radars, extending the radar coverage from Anchorage from 200 to 1200 miles. These radars had been used in 1968 to alert Seaboard World Airlines Flight 253 in a similar situation. R. W. Johnson writes in his 1986 book Shootdown: "The question of why these radars were not used to alert 007 remains."As a result of this incident, Ronald Reagan announced that the Global Positioning System (GPS) would be made available for civilian uses once completed.

Soviet version

The Soviet Government expressed its "regret over the death of innocent victims", but laid the blame for this "criminal, provocative act" on the CIA.

Soviet authorities argued that:

Today, when all versions have been viewed from all possible angles, when leading specialists, including pilots who have flown Boeings for thousands of hours, have declared that three computers could not break down all at once and neither could five radio transmitters, there can be no doubt as to the intentions of the intruder plane.

The Soviet pilots who intercepted the aircraft could not have known that it was a civilian plane. It was flying without the navigation lights, in conditions of poor visibility and did not respond to radio signals.

According to the Soviet line, the airliner was clearly on a spy mission as it "flew deep into Soviet territory for several hundred kilometres, without responding to signals and disobeying the orders of interceptor fighter planes."

The purpose of this alleged mission was to probe Soviet air defenses over the highly sensitive military sites on the Kamchatka Peninsula and Sakhalin Island.

Controversy

Flight 007 has been the subject of ongoing controversy in America and has spawned a number of conspiracy theories, including allegations that the flight was a spy mission. One of these theories was that Space Shuttle Challenger and a satellite were monitoring the airliner's progress over Soviet territory. Time magazine, which printed this claim, was sued by Korean Air Lines and forced to pay damages as well as print an apology.

The controversy has continued. In 1994, Robert W Allardyce and James Gollin wrote Desired Track: The Tragic Flight of KAL Flight 007, supporting the spy mission theory. In 2007, they reiterated their position in a series of articles in Airways magazine, arguing that the investigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization was a cover-up.

In January 1996, Hans Ephraimson, Chairman of the American Association for Families of KAL 007 Victims, claimed that South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan accepted $4 million from Korean Air in order to gain "government protection" during the investigation of the shootdown.

Cold War context

The Flight 007 shootdown occurred in the context of heightened Cold War tensions related to the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the confrontational strategy of the newly elected Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

1983 saw at least two incidents in which Soviet forces apparently believed nuclear attack was imminent: the false alarm on September 24 allegedly quashed by Stanislav Petrov and the Able Archer NATO exercise in November.

Popular culture

• Two television movies were produced about the incident; both films were produced before the fall of the Soviet Union allowed access to archives:
  • Shootdown (1988), starring Angela Lansbury, John Cullum, and Kyle Secor, was based on the book of the same title by R.W. Johnson, about the efforts of Nan Moore (Lansbury), the mother of a passenger, to get answers from the US and Russian governments.
  • The British Granada Television documentary drama Coded Hostile, screened on 7 September 1989, detailed the US military and governmental investigation, highlighting the likely confusion of Flight 007 with the USAF RC-135 in the context of routine US SIGINT/COMINT missions in the area. Written by Brian Phelan and directed by David Darlow, it starred Michael Murphy, Michael Moriarty, and Chris Sarandon. It was screened by HBO in the United States under the title Tailspin - Behind the Korean Airliner Tragedy on 20 August 1989. An updated version of Coded Hostile was screened in the UK on 31 August 1993, incorporating details of the 1992 UN investigation.
• A documentary from Unsolved History, a program of Discovery Channel, featured this incident.
• The song "Murder in the Skies" by Gary Moore on his album Victims of the Future (1983) retells the incident.
• The song "The Ballad of Flight 007" by Gerald R. Griffin (1983) recounts the story from both a personal and political perspective.
• The drama "Light of Million Hopes" (In Chinese 萬家燈火), produced by Asia Television Limited (ATV) Hong Kong, a role named "Go Lai" (starred by Joey Meng 萬綺雯) was killed in during a "1983 Korean flight shot downed by Soviet". However in the drama the flight was flying from Japan to Korea, while KAL 007 was a US to Korea flight.

See also

• Adam Air Flight 574
• List of airliner shootdown incidents
• List of Korea-related topics
• Larry McDonald (U.S. congressman, passenger on Flight 007)
• The Yeltsin/Senator Helms Interchange

References

Further reading

• Bamford, James (1983). The Puzzle Palace. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-006748-5.
• Brun, Michael (1996). Incident at Sakhalin: The True Mission of KAL Flight 007. Four Walls Eight Windows. ISBN 1-56858-054-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Clubb, Oliver (1985). KAL Flight 007: The Hidden Story. The Permanent Press. ISBN 0-932966-59-4.
• Dallin, Alexander (1985). Black Box: KAL 007 and the Superpowers. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-05515-2.
• Gollin, James (1994). Desired Track. American Vision Publishing. ISBN 1-883868-01-7. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Grady, William P. (2005). "KAL 007". Understanding the Times - Volume One: How Satan Turned America From God. Grady Publications. pp. pp. 504-570. ISBN 0-9628809-3-0. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1987). "The Target Is Destroyed": What Really Happened to Flight 007. Vintage. ISBN 0-394-75527-8.
• Johnson, R. W. (1986). Shootdown: Flight 007 and the American Connection. Viking Penguin. ISBN 0-670-81209-9.
• Kirkpatrick, Jeane Jordan (1988). "KAL-007: Violating the Norms of Civil Conduct". Legitimacy and Force. Transaction, Inc. pp. pp. 374-375. ISBN 0-88738-100-6. Retrieved 2007-07-27. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
• Luttwak, Edward N. (1985). "Delusions of Soviet Weakness". Strategy and History. Transaction, Inc. pp. pp. 241-243. ISBN 0-88738-065-4. Retrieved 2007-07-27. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
• Pearson, David E. (1987). KAL 007: The Cover-Up. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-55716-5.
• Pry, Peter Vincent (1999). "The KAL Crisis, September 1983". War Scare: Russia and America on the Nuclear Brink. Praeger Publishers. pp. pp. 27-31. ISBN 0-275-96643-7. Retrieved 2007-07-27. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
• Rohmer, Richard (1984). Massacre 007: The Story of the Korean Air Lines Flight 007. Hodder Headline Australia. ISBN 0340364475.
• Schlossberg, Bert (2001). Rescue 007: The Untold Story of KAL 007 and Its Survivors. Xlibris Corp. ISBN 0738857750.
• "Secrets of the Black Box: KAL 007". The History Channel. 2006.
• Snyder, Alvin (1995). Warriors of Disinformation. Arcade Publishing. ISBN 1-55970-389-X.
• St. John, Jeffrey (1984). Day of the Cobra: The True Story of KAL Flight 007. Thomas Nelson. ISBN 0-8407-5381-0.
• Sypher, Richard (2002). Death of Flight 007. Think Publishing. ISBN 1891098055.
• Takahashi, Akio (1985). Truth Behind KAL Flight 007. Apt Books. ISBN 0865907870.
• Woodson, Frank (2000). The Last Flight of 007 (Take Ten: Disaster). Artesian Press. ISBN 1586590251.

External links

KAL 007 was a spy plane http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-ppfYzyc7dK4BRCAzBjd.GbbpU2smVMduiFlli1xYRX4m?p=3

• Shootdown at IMDb
• Tailspin: Behind the Korean Airliner Tragedy at IMDb
• KAL 007 Mystery
• Interview with Soviet pilot who shot down plane
• Pre-shootdown photos of the airplane
• FBI Files for KA007 Mystery: Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts
• Another Location of the FOIA Document of the KAL Flight 007
• KHABAROVSK JOURNAL; Keeping the Air Lanes Free: Lessons of a Horror
• NASA report on autopilot error
• New American article on KAL 007
• The website of the International Committee for the Rescue of KAL 007 Survivors