User:Hutcher/Korean Air Flight 007

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 it did not believe the aircraft was civilian and suggested it 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 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.

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.

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.

Interception
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, and KAL 007 met in international airspace.

Timeline of attack:  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 . 18:23 GMT - "KE007 reported reaching FL 350" .

18:26 GMT - Major Gennadie Osipovich, pilot of the lead aircraft, fires 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. Approximately 12 miles from the shore of Sakhalin Island the lead Soviet aircraft, piloted by Gennady Osipovich, fires an air to air missile. When the missile exploded KAL 007's tail was pushed downward which at the same time lifted its nose causing a brief altitude gain before it began to descend. 18:26:46 GMT - Captain Chun of KAL 007 was able to turn off the autopilot. "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]." . 18:28 GMT - Major Gennadie Osipovich, lead Soviet pilot, mistakenly reports: "The target is destroyed." . 18:29:13 GMT - The Soviet pilots unsuccessfully try to locate the wreckage of KAL 007 stating: "I don't see it." </li> <li>18:29:54 GMT - Another Soviet pilot says of the "target": "No I don't see it." .</li> <li>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 the "target" .</li> <li>18:30 GMT - KAL 007 was reported by radar at 16,400 feet .</li> <li>18:38 GMT - KAL 007 disappeared from the radar screen (approximately 12 minutes after the initial attack). A free fall from 35,000 feet would take a similar aircraft approximately 2 minutes .</li> </ul>

Crash Scene
"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 "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."

The following had been recovered by September 20, 1983 (nearly three weeks after the incident): <ul> <li>Aircraft Debris: 449 pieces by Japan and 54 pieces by the Soviet Union, for a total of 503;</li> <li>Articles Belonging To Victims: 323 items by Japan and 22 items by the Soviets, for a total of 345;</li> <li>Suitcases: 0 </li> <li>Human Remains: 13 by Japan and zero by the Soviets, for a total of 13 including 2 bodies. </li> </ul> Six days later, the Soviets turned over another 76 items. On December 19, 1983, the Soviets surrendered yet another 83 small items, bringing the total of all items recovered to 1,020 "The Russians picked up 18 articles of clothing and sent them to Japan -- but only after having them drycleaned."

A comparable 747 crash on June 23, 1985, Air India Flight 182 with 329 passengers onboard, yielded: 131 bodies in 2 days and many huge pieces of the airliner (about four tons in all). Nearly three weeks after that incident, the in-flight voice recorder and in-flight data recorder were retrieved

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."

C. K. Suh, Manager of the American Regional Office of Korean Air Lines in Los Angeles, phoned Congressman Larry McDonald's press aide, Tommy Toles, that he had "just called Korean Air Lines in Seoul" and that "the information I got from them is that [the] U.S. Embassy in Korea informed the Korean Government, Minister of Foreign Affairs ... that the plane has landed in Sakhalin."

An additional phone call received by Tommy Toles at the McDonald office: "This is Duty Officer Orville Brockman at FAA headquarters in Washington, DC. We have just received information from our FAA representative, Mr. Dennis Wilhelm in Tokyo, as follows: He has been advised by the Japanese Civil Aviation Bureau headquarters, Air Traffic Division, Mr. Takano -- T-a-k-a-n-o -- who is his counterpart in Japanese aviation, as follows: Japanese self-defense force confirms that the Hokkaido radar followed Air Korea to a landing in Soviet territory on the island of Sakhalinska -- S-a-k-h-a-l-i-n-s-k-a -- and it is confirmed by the manifest that Congressman McDonald is on board."

1983 ICAO Report
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. This investigation, releasing their report August 31, 1983, concluded that the violation of Soviet airspace was accidental: The autopilot had been set to heading hold after departing Anchorage. 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. In 1996, Osipovich indicated 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." The United States used RC-135s to spy on Russia, and, according to Osipovich, he feared that the plane could have been an RC-135.

1993 ICAO Report
On November 18, 1992 Russian President Boris Yeltsin released the Flight Data Recorder and the Cockpit Voice Recorder of KAL 007 to South Korean President Roh Tae-woo in part due to the efforts of Senator Jesse Helms. Initial South Korean research showed the FDR to be empty and the CFR to have an unintelligible copy. The Russians then released the 'original recordings' to the ICAO. The ICAO Report continued to support it's initial assertion that KAL 007 accidentily flew in Soviet airspace.

Aftermath
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."

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.

The next day, the Soviet Union admitted to shooting down KAL 007, stating the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft when it violated Soviet airspace. The attack pushed relations between the United States and the Soviet Union to a new low. 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. Unedited versions of the tape later revealed to Snyder that the Soviets had in fact given the plane internationally recognized warning signals.

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.

September 24, 1983
In response to heightened tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union following the Korean Air shoot down and their knowledge of preparations for Able Archer 83, the KGB had issued alerts to prepare for a possible nuclear first strike by the US. On September 24, 1983, software running on computers in the Serpukhov-15 bunker mistakenly detected a rare sunlight alignment as five nuclear missiles launched from the US targeting Moscow. In the event of such an attack, the Soviet Union’s strategy protocol was to launch an immediate all-out nuclear weapons counterattack against the United States and then afterwards inform political and military personnel. Strategic Rocket Forces lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov dismissed the missiles as computer errors, despite pressure by other officers in the bunker to commence responsive actions. He was later accused of disobeying orders and defying military protocol, reassigned, and finally took early retirement.

Able Archer 83
The shoot down of Flight 007 was an incident which had ramifications on the Cold War later in 1983 when NATO conducted a simulation, known as Able Archer 83, of the procedures leading up to nuclear release. Held in November, Able Archer 83 was supposed to include the participation of President Reagan. Even before the downing of Flight 007, relations between the US and the USSR had been tense; President Reagan's rhetoric afterward and the global reaction led some in the USSR to believe that Able Archer 83 was a genuine nuclear first strike. In response, the Soviets readied their nuclear forces and placed air units in East Germany and Poland on alert. This relatively obscure incident is considered by many historians to be the closest the world has come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The threat of nuclear war abruptly ended with the conclusion of the Able Archer 83 exercise on November 11, which, coincidentally, was also Armistice Day (alternatively called Remembrance Day or Veterans Day).

Controversy
The Korean Air Flight 007 incident has been the subject of ongoing controversy including allegations that the flight was on a spy mission. One of these specified that in addition to Korean Air Flight 007, the space shuttle Challenger and a satellite were monitoring its progress over Soviet territory. The magazine which printed this version was sued by Korean Air Lines, and forced to pay damages as well as print an apology to the airline. Accusations of conspiracy continued, in a 1994 book by Robert W Allardyce and James Gollin, Desired Track: The Tragic Flight of KAL Flight 007 supporting the spy mission conclusion was released. Reiterating this during a 2007 series of articles in Airways magazine which argued that the investigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization was a cover-up and that KAL 007 was on an spying mission.

In February 1985, a US Justice Department attorney acknowledged in federal district court that the U.S. Air Force Regional Operations Command Center at Anchorage had destroyed key tape recordings "of radar tracks from Cape Newenham and Cape Roanzof, in Alaska, which might have told much about the path of the aircraft .... The U.S. government claimed that Air Force radar tapes are normally recycled about thirty hours after recording an aircraft's passage. The fate of Flight 007 was known well within thirty hours after the recordings were made. Still, the Air Force did not save the tapes, even though it customarily impounds information related to aviation disasters."

In January 1996 Hans Ephraimson, Chairman of the American Association for Families of KAL 007 Victims said 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.

Popular culture

 * Three 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.
 * Tailspin: Behind the Korean Airliner Tragedy (1989), an HBO Original Movie with Michael Morriarty and Soon-Tek Oh
 * The British Granada Television documentary drama Coded Hostile (1989 - US title Tailspin) 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. An updated version of Coded Hostile was screened in the UK in 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 book "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.