Allegedly accidentally shot down due to Cold War era
tensions between the then Soviet Union and the West – is this 30-year old
tragic incident still an unresolved mystery?
By: Ringo Bones
Back in September 1, 1983, a supposedly routine commercial
flight of a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet designated Flight 007 in an
“alleged attempt” by its flight captain to save fuel, inadvertently strayed
close to the then Soviet era airspace over the Kamchatka Peninsula that got it
shot down by a MiG-23 Flogger patrolling the area. 30 years on, is the incident
still truly an unresolved tragic mystery of Cold War era politics?
Korean Air Lines Flight 007’s itinerary is a commercially
scheduled New York to Seoul flight almost filled to capacity with paying
civilian passengers. After stopping for
a routine refueling and airworthiness once-overs in Anchorage, Alaska, the
flight captain’s “alleged” route that made the flight accidentally stray into
Soviet airspace would only save the airline company 1,500 to 3,000 US dollars
of aviation fuel so investigators back then were baffled by the flight
captain’s decision to fly such a risky route in what was back then the most
contentious airspaces of the Cold War.
According to the then Soviet Union government’s defense, the
MiG-23 Flogger and the Su-15 fighter planes that were at the time doing routine
patrols in the Soviet controlled airspace of the Kamchatka Peninsula were
instructed to shadow the KAL Flight 007 Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet after it showed on
the Soviet air defense radar in that area. According to the Soviet authorities
back then, for a number of years, a number of US Air Force RC-135 – a
reconnaissance version of the KC-135 Stratotanker – were caught straying into
the then Soviet controlled airspaces of the Kamchatka Peninsula and more often
than not the radar signature of a typical Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet full of civilian
passengers is virtually indistinguishable from a US Air Force operated RC-135
reconnaissance plane. Thus the two Soviet era jet fighters were sent to
“shadow” the KAL Flight 007 747 Jumbo Jet in order to visually verify if it is
an American spy plane doing clandestine reconnaissance or just a civilian
airline flight that accidentally strayed into the then Soviet airspace.
Unfortunately despite the two Soviet planes being equipped
with – for at the time – the latest in Soviet era night-vision equipment that
could allegedly allow the pilot to read the airline company’s insignia and
“nose-art / fuselage-art” from up to 40 miles away just illuminated solely by
ambient starlight; it didn’t prevent the two Soviet planes from accidentally
shot down the Korean Air Lines plane with their main compliment of air-to-air
missiles after the flight captain allegedly ignored the tracer rounds fired by
the MiG-23 and Su-15 pilots as a warning shot to return back to international
airspace.
Despite of the tragic incident, the shooting down of the
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 over Soviet airspace back in September 1, 1983
prompted the then US President Ronald Reagan to allow the US Department of
Defense for civilian airlines around the world to avail of their Global
Positioning System satellite navigation system to avoid a repeat of the tragic
incident. But still a lot of the facts that lead to the tragic incident were
still much a mystery 30 years on.
