Flight and passenger information

(External Link)

KAL 007's Flight Deviation until Attack

"Worst of all Nights"

Interception

• 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's over neutral waters? Are the orders to destroy it over neutral waters? Oh, well.”
• 18:15 GMT - "KE007 requested FL [flightlevel] 350 [35,000feet]".
• 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've 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 [doesit take him] to attack position, he's already going out into neutral waters. Engage afterburner immediately. Bring in the MiG 23 as well...While you're wasting time, it'll fly right out." Here are Maj. Gennadie Osipovich's retrospective thoughts at this time, "They [KAL007] quickly lowered their speed. They were flying at 400 kilometers per hour. My speed was more than 400. I was simply unable to fly slower. In my opinion, the intruder's intentions were plain. If I didn't want to go into a stall, I'd be forced to overshoot them. That's exactly what happened. We had already flown over the island [Sakhalin]. It is narrow at that point, the target was about to get away."
• 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 two missiles - a heat seeker and a radar-guided missile (proximity fused) which exploded 50 meters behind KAL 007, the left inboard elevator cross-over cable was either severed from the right elevator or unraveled causing an arc upward of one minute and 13 seconds - from to and down again to below 35,000.
Here are Maj. Osipovich's retrospective thoughts at this time, "Then the ground [controller] gave the command: 'Destroy the target...!' That was easy to say. But how? With shells?! I'd already expended 243 rounds. Ram it? I'd always thought of that as poor taste. Ramming is the last resort. Just in case, I'd already completed my turn and was coming down on top of him. Then, I'd an idea. I dropped below him about 2,000 meters... afterburners. Switched on the missiles and brought the nose up sharply. Success! I've a lock on.".
• 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 didn't destroy any of the 4 engines. Son will again report engines normal at 18:26:45
• 18:26:13 GMT - Cabin Altitude Warning Alarm sounds indicating decompression due to missile shrapnel puncturing cabin. The fact that it sounded (CVR) 11 seconds after missile detonatation indicates that total area of rupture damage to cabin is 1 3/4 square feet.
• 18:26 GMT - Immediate Soviet awareness that target isn't 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 (click heard in CVR) 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" .
• 18:27:04 - 18:27:14 GMT - Captain Chun brings up KAL 007' nose for 10 seconds stabilizing at pre-detonation altitude of,
• 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 [10,000feet].". This message sent by High Frequency Radio 1., antenna located on left wing tip, indicating both that Maj. Osipovich was wrong when he stated that his missile had taken off the left wing and that the heat seeking missile had missed its mark (the engine). "The HF 1 radio aerial of the aircraft was positioned in the left wing tip suggesting that the left wing tip was intact at this time. Also, the aircraft's manoeuvres after the attack didn't indicate externsive damage to the left wing."
• 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've 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 don't 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 ft).
• 18:33 GMT - KAL 007 is seen by Soviet radar at 5,000 meters at initial 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's 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 altitude due to radar inability to track below that altitude. A free fall from 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.

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've near Moneron Island, if they're 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 activities, 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 an eye-witness account of the intensity of the conflict and of courage displayed, see (External Link)

Crash scene

According to the ICAO: "The location of the main wreckage wasn't determined ... The approximate position was 46°34′N 141°17'E, which was in international waters." This point is about from Moneron Island and about from the shore of Sakhalin 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 . 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 hadn't come down in international waters but rather in Soviet territorial waters: "Had TF [taskforce] 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, doesn't lie within the probability area outside the 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 the 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 (disembowled).
   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 didn't miss a single dive. I've 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 shootdown, human remains appeared on the north shore of Hokkaido. Hokkaido began about below the southern tip of Sakhalin across the Soya Straits (the southern tip of Sakhalin was 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 woman - 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 camera 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 (External Link)) 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 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 couldn't 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

The initial International Civil Aviation Organization investigation into KAL 007 wasn't 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 (an inflight navigational error). It was determined that the crew didn't 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". the pilot who shot the plane, Gennady Osipovich, stated that he fired multiple bursts from his cannon prior to releasing the two missiles.

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 facilities 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, included a statement by the Soviet Government claiming "no remains of the victims, the instruments or their components or the flight recorders have so far been discovered" . However, this was shown to be not true by Boris Yeltsin's release of the earlier Nov. 1983 Memo from KGB head V. Chebrikov and Defense Minister D. Ustinov to Yuri Andropov. This Memo stated "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."
   On March 24, 1992, Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov admitted on Russian television that he'd ordered an all-out effort to retrieve the black boxes in order to "prevent the United States from finding them and to save the Soviet Union from a flurry of international accusations for destoying a civilian airliner".In October 1992 a delegation from the American Association For Families of KAL 007 Victims visiting Moscow at the invitation of President Boris Yeltsin. During a State ceremony at St. Catherine's Hall in the Kremlin the KAL Family Delegation was handed a portfolio containing partial transcripts of the KAL007 Cockpit Voice Recorder - translated into Russian - and documents of the Polit Bureau pertaining the September 1, 1983 tragedy. At the conclusion of a three hour Work Meeting with President Yeltsin an investigation Commission under the chairmanship of General G.G. Kondrat'yev was established which completed its Report in June 1993. Also in June, Yeltsin revealed the existence of a KGB memo reporting the existence of documents related to KAL 007. Speaking in Washington, Yeltsin said, "It was a memorandum from (the) KGB to the Central Committee of the Communist Party where it says that such a tragedy has taken place, and so on and so forth, and that there are documents which would clarify the entire picture. And the next line then says these documents are so well concealed that it's doubtful that our children will be able to find them, those who come after us will be able to find them.". Then in November, President Boris Yeltsin, handed the two Black Box containers to Korean President TohTae-Woo -but not the tapes themselves. The tapes were handed to ICAO on January 8, 1993. They were transcribed by the "Bureau d'Enquete et d'Analyses" (BEA) in Paris in the presence of representatives from Japan, The Russian Federation, South Korea,and the United States.In March 1993 another KAL007 Families delegation was invited back to Moscow where they were given 93 pictures of plane debris - including floating $50 and $100 bills, the voice trancripts - ground to ground, ground to air, air to ground and air to air during the time of the incident and other documents.
   The read out of the "Cockpit Voice Recorder" and the "Digital Flight Recorder" revealed that the recordings broke off after the first minute and 44 seconds of KAL 007's post missile detonation 12 minute flight. ICAO notes that break off of tape is consonant with a high speed crash while it also concludes that, in fact, there was no high speed crash at that time. No reconciliation of data is provided. "Spliced joints were found at approximately 108, 440, 442, and 463 ft. from the beginning of the tape. The middle two were spaced at a distance corresponding to the length of the tape between the two reels and the last data was recorded between these two joints. It wasn't unusual for the tape to break as a result of high speed impacts, near where it left the reels.". The remaining minutes of flight would be supplied by the Russia 1992 submission to ICAO of the real-time Soviet military communication of the shootdown and aftermath.

The Soviet Top Secret Memos

The Soviet's communications (from KGB head V. Chebrikov and Defence Minister D. Ustinov to Premier of Soviet Union Y. Andropov) confirmed that while they were simulating a search and were harassing the U.S. fleet, they already knew where KAL 007 was, had already boarded her, and had secured for themselves the sought after "Black Box", and had decided to keep this knowledge secret - the reason being that the tapes couldn't unequivocally support the claim being maintained that the flight of KAL 007 into Soviet Territory was an intelligence mission:

"Simulated search efforts in the Sea of Japan are being performed by our vessels at present in order to dis-inform the US and Japan. These activities will be discontinued in accordance with a specific plan...

"...Therefore, if the flight recorders shall be transferred to the western countries their objective data can equally be used by the USSR and the western countries in proving the opposite view points on the nature of the flight of the South Korean airplane. In such circumstances a new phase in anti-Soviet hysteria can't be excluded.

"In connection with all mentioned above it seems highly preferable not to transfer the flight recorders to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) or any third party willing to decipher their contents. The fact that the recorders are in possession of the USSR shall be kept secret...

"As far as we're aware neither the US nor Japan has any information on the flight recorders. We have made necessary efforts in order to prevent any disclosure of the information in future.

"Looking to your approval.

"D.Ustinov, V.Chebrikov

" December 1983"

That the search efforts of the Soviets were simulated while the Soviets actually knew the airliner lie elswhere is also suggested by the article of Mikhail Prozumentshchikov, Deputy Director of the Russian State Archives of Recent History, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the shootdown. Commenting on the Search and Salvage operations, often side by side, of the Soviet and American forces, he writes, "Since the USSR, for natural reasons, knew better where the Boeing had been downed,...it was very problematical to retrieve anything, especially as the USSR wasn't particularly interested."

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's almost certain that these communications were originally encrypted.}}
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 wasn't 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 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 . 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 reaction

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 stated 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 couldn't 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 couldn't have known that it was a civilian plane. It was flying without the navigation lights, in conditions of poor visibility and didn't respond to radio signals.

The Soviet Union stated that 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

KAL 007 and the deployment of missiles in Western Europe

With the background of the build-up of tension between the Soviet Union and the United States, NATO decided, under the impetus of the Reagan presidency, to deploy Pershing II and cruise missiles in West Germany. This deployment would have placed missiles just 6 minutes flying time to Moscow, the capitol of the "Evil Empire", as Reagan had termed it. Yet support for the deployment was wavering and many doubted whether the push for deployment could be sustained. But that was to change with the shootdown of KAL 007. The barbarity of this act (characterized 6 times as "massacre" by President Reagan in his speech to the American people - see Attack on KAL Flight 007), as the U.S. and indeed the world understood it, galvanized support for the deployment - which stood in place until the later accords between Reagan and Mikhael Gorbachev.
   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.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Kal 007'.

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