Korean Airlines Flight 007: Tragedy & Conspiracy? Pt Two

Here we are -back to KAL 007. This series appears quite a bit longer than I first thought. It is hard to tell because my handwriting is so large when I transfer information to paper. I will type as much as I can with each article from here on out-so if you see "to be continued" it means I had intended to type more but got too tired or fumblefingered or that the article should have stopped earlier and was running into the next part. Actually I am not done getting all of the information to paper-but as this looks to be an "insomnia" night perhaps I can finish in the small hours of the morning.

When KAL 007 was about 80 miles (130km) from the Kamchatka coast, four MiG-23 Soviet fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the fast and high-flying intruder. At 15:51 GMT, according to Soviet sources, 007 entered the restricted airspace of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The buffer zone extended 120 miles (200km) from Kamchatka's coast. The 62 miles (100km) radius of the buffer zone closest to Soviet territory had the additional designation of prohibited airspace. Significant command and control problems were experienced trying to vector the MiG jets onto the Boeing but they ran out of fuel. In addition, pursuit was made more difficult, according to Soviet Air Force Captain Alexander Zuyev who defected to the West in 1989, because Arctic weather had knocked out Soviet radar 10 days before. The unidentified jetliner therefore crossed over the Kamchatka Peninsula back into international airspace over the Sea of Okhotsk without being intercepted.

Captain Gennady Osipovich climbed into the cockpit of his Sukhoi Su-15 interceptor an hour before dawn on 1 September 1983. He was given the coordinates of an unidentified "military" target approaching the island of Sakhalin from the direction of Kamchatka. His mission was to destroy the target if and when it crossed back into Soviet airspace. Osipovich received the order to take off at 5:42 AM Sakhalin time. The four fighter jets that had been dispatched previously had lost sight of their target as it headed out over the Sea of Okhotsk. Osipovich was a veteran pilot with 10 years of experience and knew that Soviet talk of the "impenetrable borders" of the USSR were a joke. The incident during FleetEx'83 in which a squadron of planes from the US Pacific Fleet had violated Soviet airspace over the Kurile Islands had proved that to a "T." A couple of items that may have led to the tragic downing of Flight 007 were: Ever since a Soviet fighter pilot flew a new high-tech MiG-25 to Japan and defected, orders were issued to ensure that Soviet Air Defense Force planes never had enough fuel to reach a foreign air field. This led to a maximum flying time of 40 to 50 minutes, barely enough time to complete a mission. Thus the time factor to make decisions was "squeezed" by quite a bit.

Also because of the previous dismissals of Soviet officers because of the US intrusions over the Kurile Islands, Soviet commanders on the ground (Soviet pilots were not encouraged to make their own decisions or take their own initiatives) were loathe to make the same mistakes and let more military targets get away. However, on the ground there was frantic going back and forth on the final decision to shoot the intruder down. The duty officer for Osipovich's squadron was stunned to disbelief if this were indeed a military target. The "stupid" behavior of the target was suicidal and not typical of American reconaissance. He told a colleague that the behavior of the target was "very suspicious" and "I don't think the enemy is so stupid. Can it be one of ours?" after this he called a control post on the eastern tip of the island to check on the intruder's progress. "It hasn't bombed us yet," was the mirthful and ironic reply. 400 miles to the west at the command control center at Khabarovsk there were also some doubts as to the identity of the "target."

The duty officer thought correctly that the intruder plane could be a passenger aircraft. He said, "All necessary steps must be taken to identify it." His superior, General Kamenski also had his doubts, "Maybe it is some civilian aircraft, or God knows what, " he told the commander of air defenses on Sakhalin, General Kornukov. (Hope Kamenski didn't get in trouble for the "God.":) Kornukov wasn't having any of it and said, "What civilian?!" He had only been awakened 45 minutes earlier and informed that an American RC-135 was heading straight towards the island. He was well aware of the penalties for letting such an aircraft escape. Korukov said, "It has flown over Kamchatka. It came from the ocean, without identification. I am giving the order to attack." However, a very short while later, Kornukov countermanded his earlier order to shoot down the plane! 6 times in total Gen. Kornukov asked, "Are there navigation lights or not?" The abscence of these lights would signify the hostile or espionage intent of the intruder. Osipovich radioed back, "The air navigation light is on." Kornukov ordered Osipovich to flash his plane's lights as a warning signal and also for him to approach the plane and roll his wings back and forth at it and force it to land.

Kornukov was irritated by the extra talk in the background and gave another order to the commander of Osipovich's squadron: "Stop that horsing around at the command post. Only you, I and the controller are to talk. No one else." Osipovich was positioned behind and slightly below the mystery plane. He fired four bursts of armor piercing shells, 243 rounds in all. In response the target appeared to reduce speed, forcing Osipovich to fire ahead of the target. Both planes had now crossed the island from east to west and were heading into the Sea of Japan. It appeared to Osipovich at the time that the target was taking evasive action. Osipovich could not slow down or he would stall, so he dived 2,000 feet and banked around for a second pass at the intruder. I am going to try to post this second article of the KAL series now and begin to work on a third-I do not know if the third will be here tonight but I will try. The first image is a list of the nationalities of the dead of KAL 007. The second image is the official portrait of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR at the time, Yuri Andropov. Andropov will also be making more of an appearance in this series. Peace and be well to anyone stopping by!