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Korean Air Lines Flight 007 ( KE007 / KAL007) [note 2] was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska. On September 1, 1983, the flight was shot down by a Soviet Sukhoi Su-15 interceptor aircraft. The Boeing 747 airliner was en route from Anchorage to Seoul, but owing to a navigational mistake made by ...
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Nov 13, 2009 · KAL 007 was hit and plummeted into the Sea of Japan. All 269 people on board were killed. U-2 Spy Incident. This was not the first time a South Korean flight had run into trouble over Russia....
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Korean Air Lines flight 007, flight of a passenger jet that was shot down by Soviet air-to-air missiles on September 1, 1983, near Sakhalin Island, Russia, killing all 269 persons on board. It was en route to Seoul from Anchorage, Alaska, when it strayed more than 200 miles (322 km) from its scheduled path and entered Soviet airspace. Soviet author...
Korean Air Lines (KAL) flight 007 originated in New York City and stopped in Anchorage to refuel. At approximately 4:00 am local time on August 31, 1983, the plane, a Boeing 747, departed. Shortly thereafter the aircraft crossed the International Date Line, and the day changed to September 1. By this time the plane’s path was already deviating to the north, and some three hours into its flight the aircraft appeared on Russian radar. At the same time, a U.S. Air Force plane, a Boeing 707, was on a reconnaissance mission nearby, attempting to monitor the Soviet testing of a missile on the Kamchatka Peninsula. It was being tracked by the Soviets, but at some point the civilian aircraft was misidentified as the spy plane. Soviet fighter jets scrambled but failed to reach the South Korean aircraft before it cleared Kamchatka and flew over international waters.
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The incident had widespread fallout and increased tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. U.S. officials immediately claimed that the Soviets had knowingly downed a civilian plane, and U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan decried it as “an act of barbarism.” Government officials continued to publicly promote this narrative, even after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that the Soviets had likely mistaken the plane for a reconnaissance aircraft. U.S. authorities used the incident to stir anti-Soviet sentiment worldwide, especially as it was the second time Soviets had attacked a passenger plane; an incident involving another Korean Air Lines aircraft had occurred in 1978, but that plane had managed to make an emergency landing, and only two people died.
The Soviets, in turn, initially denied responsibility until the United States presented intercepted Soviet radio communications. Faced with such evidence, they admitted downing the plane but claimed that it had been conducting a spy mission for the United States. Although no corroboration was presented to support this assertion, the Soviets continued to claim that their response was justified. Among many Soviet officials, the incident was seen as a “political provocation carefully organized by the US special services.”
In October 1983 Soviets discovered the plane’s black box but kept its recovery secret. The United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) launched an investigation of the incident, but, with limited information, it was able to produce only an interim report later that year. One of the biggest mysteries was why the plane had strayed so far from its scheduled route. The ICAO produced two theories, both of which involved human error concerning the navigation system. One proposed explanation involved the autopilot being set to “heading” mode when it should have been on Inertial Navigation System (INS). On the former setting, the plane’s route would not have been adjusted for wind conditions, among other issues. The second theory concerned the pilot’s entering of a wrong number into the navigation system. The ICAO also held that there was no evidence to support the Soviet assertion that the passenger plane was on an intelligence-gathering mission, and it later condemned their “use of armed force.” Furthermore, the ICAO recommended an amendment (Article 3 bis) to the Convention on International Civil Aviation that banned the use of military weapons against civilian aircraft in flight; after it was ratified by the necessary number of member states, it went into effect in 1998.
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In 1992 the ICAO resumed its investigation after Russia agreed to release various materials, and the tapes from the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder were turned over the following year. Later in 1993 the ICAO completed its investigation. It notably concluded that the theory involving the “heading” mode was the most likely explanation for the plane’s path. Either the pilots had failed to change the setting or the plane was too far off course when the INS mode was selected, causing it to fail to engage. The ICAO also found nothing in the recordings to suggest that the plane had been gathering intelligence.
The lack of definitive answers concerning KAL flight 007 contributed to the rise of numerous alternate theories. Some, for instance, claimed that the damaged plane actually landed in Russia and that the passengers and crew were imprisoned. Another theory suggested that the plane crashed during a shoot-out between Soviet and U.S. aircraft. Others be...
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Feb 16, 2024 · SkyTeam. CEO: Walter Cho. Country: South Korea. Summary. During the Cold War, the USSR strictly controlled its airspace, forbidding any foreign aircraft from entering. Korean Air Lines flight 007 was shot down by the Soviet Union in 1983 after deviating off course.
Aug 31, 2013 · On a sultry August night in 1983 at New York’s JFK airport, Alice Ephraimson-Abt, a brilliant, 23-year-old blue-eyed blonde, was about to board Korean Air Lines Flight 007 for Seoul,...
Sep 1, 2023 · On August 31, 1983, Korean Air Lines (today known as Korean Air) Flight 007 left John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) in New York, United States (US) bound for the East Asian capital city of Seoul. After refueling in Anchorage, Alaska, the Boeing 747 aircraft, carrying 269 people, passed the International Date Line, jumping forward to the fateful day ...
Korean Air Lines. the airplane spiraled into the sea, near Moneron Island just west of Sakhalin. The shootdown of KAL 007 three decades ago was one of the deadliest and most important events of the late Cold War. Two hundred sixty-nine pas-sengers and crew died when the airliner hit the water.
