Korean Airlines Flight 007: Tragedy & Conspiracy? Pt Five

Many commentators and historians have argued over the years about the notion of there being "hawks" and "doves" in the Kremlin. After studying Soviet history (albeit as a complete amateur for 30 years), I do believe that there were men in the Soviet government who wanted peace more than others, the problem is the only way for a dove to survive surrounded by hawks is to at least appear to be a hawk himself. Second of all, I believe that with the majority of the Soviet leadership, feelings of peace towards the West were greatly enhanced by what they could get out of cooperating and signing treaties with the US and other nations-detente. I also want to say that here it would be very hypocritical for me not to say that the same type of things could also be said of the United States. For the number of Soviets who no doubt would have been relieved if the United States were wiped off the face of the earth-there was a huge contingent of people in the United States who would have been happy to see the same thing happen with the Soviets. In the area of propaganda the United States -in my opinion anyway-intentionally overestimated the "threat" the Soviet Union posed to bloat the already hugely bloated defense industry or military-industrial complex (MIC). There was an enormous amount of hatred and mistrust whipped up by both sides of the Cold War.

Matters were not helped any in 1984 when President Reagan, who didn't realize he was talking into a "live" mike said, "I have just signed a bill outlawing the Soviet Union forever. Bombing begins in five minutes." I may not have the exact quote -but its damn close and it was a hugely stupid thing for Reagan to say-both as a head of state and as a human being. For once the "luck" that seemed to follow Reagan through a great deal of his presidency seemed to have slipped -at least for a moment. Looking back on it, I don't think the aftermath of the "bombing begins in five minutes" incident lasted that long. Forgive me please for digressing (yet again-a rather common thing with me) but does anyone else who was around in the early 80s feel that if any other prez had dealt with the PATCO strike like Reagan did -that if it were any other prez-I feel that within a couple of weeks a huge airline catastrophe would have happened-and thank god it didn't. But what really gets me after these years is that in some quarters in the US Reagan is on his way to being deified and -I suppose it just shows you what can be done with the right sound-bites and Madison Avenue marketing. To me the man was an absolute bore and completely uninspiring (haha-there was the "small" matter of him edging the US closer to a nuclear exchange with the Soviets than any time since 1962!). This may just be a typical left-wing rant but here is my thing with Reagan -he did an excellent job as acting as a president -but I guess that's where I part company with so many. I could always tell it was acting-none of it was real-and he was very good at it -but I could tell almost everything the man said was bullshit!

Sorry about that I will stick to the story from here on out -sheesh as if I am not behind enough! Damn I even lost my place!

Often, survival in the Kremlin meant not survival of the most sophisticated and intelligent -but the blandest and most boring! This meant having a preternatural feel for the upcoming party positions and to agree with them totally-whether you really did or not. Konstantin Chernenko, who would become the general secretary on Andropov's death, chaired the Politburo meeting on the KAL 007 affair because of Andropov's hospitalization. Chernenko was a completely colorless Brezhenev crony. One of Chernenko's responsibilities used to be making sure that Brezhnev didn't smoke over his quota of cigarettes. The Soviet ambassador to the USA, Anatoly Dobrynin, had told a reporter here during the wait and see period after Andropov's death, something to the effect that "The elevation of Konstantin Chernenko to the Communist Party leadership would be an insult to both the Soviet state and people." Once again -relying a lot on memory for that-I will look it up to be sure. Just the fact that Dobrynin wasn't even punished for making such a statement when Chernenko did get the nod-much less called back to Moscow and shot, as he would have been during Stalin's time shows how little respect Chernenko had among many important Soviet officials.

In regard to KAL 007, Chernenko said to the Politburo, "One thing is clear, we cannot allow foreign planes to overfly our territory freely. No self-respecting state can allow that." Defense Minister Ustinov was next to speak. His report to the Politburo contained several major lies, designed to relieve the military of all responsibility for the incident. Unstinov claimed that the 747 was flying "without warning lights," directly contradicted by the testimonyof the interceptor pilot. He also insisted that "repeated instructions" had been given to the intruder to land at a Soviet airfield and that warning shots had been fired "with tracer shells, as stipulated by International rules." Ustinov continued: "My opinion is that in this situation we must show firmness and remain cool. We should not flinch. If we flinch, it gives all kinds of people the opportunity to overfly our territory." Andrei Gromyko, the 74 year old foreign minister was the only Politburo member with the prestige and authority to stand up to Ustinov. And perhaps Gromyko was sorely tempted to do this, as he would bear the brunt of international outrage over the incident. However, Gromyko was always a very cautious man. He had survived Stalin's purges and managed to climb near to the pinnacle of power by always supporting the winning side.

Instead of choosing to debate Ustinov he also caved in, as he didn't want to appear too much like a peacenik during this rapidly escalating incident. Gromyko told the Politburo that the Soviet military had acted "correctly" when it shot down the Korean plane. However, he also acknowledged that the Soviet Union should anticipate a likely barrage of "imperialist propaganda" and admit that "shots were fired." "We should say so frankly, so as not to allow our adversary to accuse us of being deceitful. Our main argument should be that the plane was flying over Soviet territory and had penetrated an exceptionally long way into our territory." It was now Mikhail Gorbachev's turn to speak. The "baby" of the Politburo at 52 years old was in a very fragile position. His colleagues knew he was the one Andropov wanted to be his successor. Andropov had encouraged Gorbachev to get involved in all areas of Soviet government in anticipation of this. The older members of the Politburo needed his youthful energy and competence-but they also felt threatened by him to say the least. It was very hard for them to imagine Gorbachev keeping them around if he came to power, rather than replace them with men closer to his own age. Gorbachev walked a tightrope to retain their confidence and have a realistic chance for the top job.

He had to be an enthusiastic supporter of the Party without threatening any of the vested interests of the Soviet bureaucracy. Gorbachev also took the "safe" line in the Politburo meeting. He told his colleagues that the Americans must have known of this unauthorized violation of Soviet airspace. The length of time that the plane had been in Soviet airspace, two hours, proved that this was a "planned provocation" by the United States. To be continued....

The image is of a plane very similar to what Gennady Osipovich might have thought he was actually firing at. I am exhausted and probably shouldn't even have started this article! Sorry for going off-topic with the "Reagan Rant." I am just amazed so many times how the criminals get away with so much here in the US. O-and any conservatives who might see this-no worries about me. I am voting third party in 2012 and am disgusted with both major politcal parties in our nation right now. I hope to be back online soon with more-hopefully tomorrow. I hope there aren't a huge amount of typos in this-I will try to look real fast. Before finally going offline I will also check for the Dobrynin/Chernenko quote. If it is vastly different than I remember, I will come back and delete it or change it. All the best to anyone stopping by! OK -I am giving myself just a week to confirm the Dobrynin quote about Chernenko. If this were any other area of history I would have taken it down already. Just wanted to come back and let people know to beware of that quote until I can prove it or delete it-maybe someone else will know about it? The second image I brought back is of Chernenko and Brezhnev in happier times-probably the mid to late 1970s with a group of Young Pioneers.

Korean Airlines Flight 007: Tragedy & Conspiracy? Pt Four

Yuri Andropov had the view that the key to ruling a country as vast and as teeming with so many different ethnic groups as the USSR was to never show weakness. This stratagem applied to both domestic and foreign policy. The enemies of the revolution were always lying in wait, ready to seize the slightest opportunity should the Soviet leadership show any signs of weakness or a non-united front. To a man of Andropov's thinking, events should never spiral out of control to the point that the onl solution was to use massive military force, as in East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. During Politburo meetings before he became general secretary, Andropov was constantly calling for strong measures against dissidents and intellectuals. He was fond of quoting Lenin's views on this, "A revolution is worth something only if it knows how to defend itself." Indeed, for all his knowledge of the true state of the USSR and willingness to experiment, Andropov was a prisoner of the Soviet system as much as the average proletarian worker-although with much better perks and influence! His revolutionary world-view stopped him from challenging the basic features that were actually eroding Soviet power: the overwhelming might of the military-industrial complex; central planning; the elevation of politcal dogma over rational economic thought.

Andropov was also a fervent admirer of Eisenstein's film Ivan the Terrible, which was a very thinly veiled apology for autocratic rule that had been made to order for Stalin. Andropov was particularly fond of a scene early in the movie, when the new tsar is flexing his muscles and trying to impose his will on the rebellious boyars. The boyars say that neither Europe nor Rome will recognize the young tsar, to which a Jesuit priest replies, "He who is strong will be recognized by everybody." Andropov would repeat these words when any argument arose about the need for a tough stance to deal with the American imperialists. Similar to Stalin and Ivan the Terrible, Andropov lived in a world surrounded by plotting domestic enemies and hostile foreign powers. The only possible way to survive in such a world was to be as ruthless, crafty and even as paranoid as your enemies. Military strength was the keystond of the Russian state. The Soviet obsession with security many times undermined their other foreign policy goals when they wanted to be seen as peacemakers. Andropov was very reluctant to go against the ideas of the military-industrial complex. However, when KAL 007 occurred, the Foreign Ministry urged him to assume responsibility for the shootdown, while accusing the United States of orchestrating a deliberate spying mission on the USSR.

But Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov, was absolutely against admitting any Soviet role in the destruction of 007. In a conference call to Andropov's hospital room, Ustinov told Andropov, "Don't worry, everything will be all right. Nobody will be able to prove anything." Since Stalin's time, Politburo meetings had followed an exact ritual. The meetings were less a forum for open debate than a weekly loyalty ceremony and rubbing of the elbows for members of the party's inner elite. The agenda for the meeting was usually predetermined by the general secretary and a small number of powerful chieftains, each of whom enjoyed a great deal of autonomy in their particular field of expertise or even moreso if they led one of the Soviet Union's fifteen republics (there were two to three leaders of various Soviet republics in the Politburo at this time if memory serves.) There was always a strict adherence to proper deference shown to the more powerful members around the Politburo table. Junior members were expected to give the floor to their elders and always say something to support the established party doctrine at the time. With this automatic support for a particular decision, they automatically assumed responsibility for it. This process spiralled down repeatedly until it became binding on all of the 18 million Soviet Communists. With the idea of "democratic centralism," once the Politburo had made a formal decision, no dissent was tolerated. Communist ideology by this time had long given way to cynicism. Oh-the Party bosses would still use it to fall back on and slavishly claimed to believe in a "bright Soviet future." But most-by the early 1980s only used lip service to support communist party directives-the revolutionary fires had long burned out for the great majority.

I had no idea this series would be this long! The image is of Major Gennady Osipovich, the pilot who shot down KAL 007. I may try to do one more article for this series today unless I get too tired. Peace and best to anyone stopping by!

Korean Airlines Flight 007: Tragedy & Conspiracy? Pt Three

The passengers aboard Flight 007 were completely unaware of the drama taking place just outside their windows. Some would have covered themselves in blankets and dozed off. Others were waiting for the cabin crew to serve breakfast as the plane flew (supposedly) over Japan to South Korea. Most of the window shades would have still been down for the last part of the in-flight movie. The conversations on the flight deck also show how unaware the crew were of the danger they were in. They talked about upcoming vacations, customs procedures and the location and opening time of the airport currency exchange. The onboard inertial navigation system had failed to engage, either because the pilots had switched it on too late or because someone had flipped the switch to the wrong position.

At the moment, Captain Osipovich had attempted to catch 007's attention with cannon fire, Captain Chun was talking to air traffic control in Tokyo. He got permission to climb two thousand feet to an altitude of 37,000 feet, a normal fuel-saving excercise at this point in the flight. Osipovich interpreted this as an attempt to escape. With 007 heading out of Soviet airspace the generals on the ground were starting to panic. They could face severe consequences if they let a military target get away. There wasn't any time left to ID the target positively; Osipovich was running out of time and fuel. He had only 10 to 15 minutes of flying time left. In theory-and I do wonder why this wasn't tried earlier-perhaps because it had been assumed for so long that the intruder was military-with the Kurile Island incident in the very recent background?) Osipovich could have tried to reach the intruder on the internationally recognized emergency frequency-121.5 Megahertz. However, this meant Osipovich would lose communication with his ground controllers at this crucial time while he retuned his radio-and there was no time for that either.

At 6:21 AM Sakhalin time, just as dawn was arriving, KAL 007 was flying out of Soviet airspace. Kornukov had to make a final decision. His command was: "Fire missiles, fire on target six-zero-six-five, destroy target six-zero-six-five," and finally, "Carry out the task, destroy!" Bring one-six-three in behind Osipovich to guarantee destruction!" "Eight-zero-five, approach target and destroy target!" Osipovich spun around the still unidentified Boeing 747 and launched a heat-seeking missile. 2 seconds later he fired the radar-guided missile. "Launch executed," he radioed to the ground. It only took the missiles 35 seconds to cover the 5 miles between the two planes. Osipovich saw a burst of flame from the tail section. The navigation lights went out immediately. Initially, the plane appeared to climb but as Osipovich swung his jet to the right he could see the "target" falling into the sea. "The target is destroyed," he said in a voice filled with excitement. At the time Osipovich thought he had fulfilled the dream of his career: shooting down a hostile military target.

The destruction of KAL 007 was an enormous gift for President Reagan and the conservative movement in the United States. They could not have asked for a better incident to help label the USSR the "Evil Empire." The Soviets didn't help themselves by denying for almost a week what had happened. The first statement issued by the Soviet news agency TASS-that the plane was flying "without navigation lights," and that the Soviet interceptors had tried to guide the plane to the "nearest airfield" among others were easily destroyed when the Americans simply played a tape of exchanges between Sakahalin ground control and Osipovich to a solemn session of the UN Security Council.

Yuri Andropov had been in power less than 10 months at the time of the KAL incident. He was not a particularly vibrant man on becoming General Secretary, and now after his health eroded at an even faster pace and he was besieged by enormous responsibilities, the new Soviet leader looked like a skeleton. Even his longtime colleagues had trouble recognizing him. Andropov spent much of his time in a hospital that catered to the Soviet higher-ups. His room was a mess of cluttered medical equipment and Kremlin telephones. Andropov sat in a modified dentist's chair with a high headrest that allowed him to shift his position at the touch of a button. His kidneys ceased to function completely in the summer of 1983 and he had to be hooked up to a dialysis machine twice a week. To the average Russian citizen, General Secretary Andropov had become a rather ghostly prescence already-as if he had somehow got stuck on earth when he was supposed to have crossed over. They only heard from him through written statements labeled "from the Soviet leadership; a TASS communique or an interview in Pravda.

The Andropov era had gotten off to a good start in most Soviet citizens' minds-despite typical "dark" jokes such as greeting each other on New Years Day 1983 and saying "Happy New 1938!" -transposing the numbers of the year to signify one of the worst years of Stalin's purges and atrocities. After 18 years of glacial drift and stagnation under Brezhnev most Soviets welcomed change of any kind. They were impressed by Andropov's anti-corruption drive that targeted many former Brezhenev cronies and at the same time helped to glorify the image of the former KGB chief as a stern but just ruler who would get the country back on track and moving again. It appeared for a time that Russsian's finally had a real master -a khozyayin, who would restore dignity, honor, order and discipline to the Soviet Union. By the early 80s the Russian people were desperate for any strong leader. Many Russians acted warmly to even such token steps as a series of raids on Moscow bathhouses in the daytime to punish absenteeism from work. For the Communist Party elite, the sick old man in the dentist's chair was held in regard as the best of his generation.

Andropov's 15 years as the KGB chief had shown him what the true condition of the USSR was and also the extent that it lagged behind the West. In comparison to Brezhnev, Andropov was decisive and energetic. He definitely understood the need for change and was seriously considering new ideas. However, there was a very tough side to Andropov that knew "change" could only go so far-and only under the guidance of the Communist Party. The younger members of the Politburo who had not experienced war or revolution, as Andropov had, perhaps didn't realize that the key to Soviet power was only through the will of a ruthless minority to impose its will on the rest of the nation. In Andropov's mind reform was entirely necessary-but had to be very tightly guided and overseen. To be continued...

Still more to go -but I did get a lot done tonight-for me anway! Peace and be well to anyone stopping by! The first image is of a TIME magazine cover published shortly after the incident. The second image is a few of the faces of the victims of KAL 007.

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!

Korean Airlines Flight 007: Tragedy & Conspiracy? Pt One

In 1983 Cold War tensions had escalated due to several factors. These included the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative-SDI-or Star Wars, announced by President Reagan in March 1983. With this proposal the US would develop weapons that used a kind of energy beam to knock incoming Soviet missiles before they could reach their target. The planned and executed deployment of the Pershing II missiles in Europe in March and April. Also FleetEx '83, the largest fleet excercise held to date in the North Pacific. Aircraft from the USS Midway and the USS Enterprise repeatedly flew over Soviet military installations in the Kurile Islands, resulting in the dismissal or reprimanding of Soviet military officials who had been unable to shoot down the intruding aircraft. I also believe the Kurile Islands incidents will become somewhat important later in this story. On the Soviet side Operation RYAN (a Russian acronym for Raketno Yadernoe Napadenie-Nuclear Missile Attack) was also expanded. RYAN had been instituted by then KGB chairman Yuri Andropov (later to become the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union after Brezhnev's death) in 1981 because he and his advisers thought the USA was planning a nuclear first strike on the USSR. Lastly, there was a heightened alert around the Kamchatka Peninsula when KAL 007 in the vicinity, because of a Soviet missile test that was scheduled for the same day. The missile test was the reason that a United States Air Force RC-135 reconaissance aircraft was patrolling off the peninsula.

With all of these heightened Cold War tensions the Soviets shot down a civilian Korean Airlines Boeing 747 on 1 September 1983. The loss of life aboard the aircraft was complete-all 269 people aboard died. KAL 007 was shot down while it was flying over the Sea of Japan, just west of Sakhalin Island over prohibited Soviet airspace. Lawrence McDonald, a member of the US House of Representatives from Georgia's seventh district was among those killed. There was an irony in this in that even though McDonald was a Democrat, he was violently anti-detente with the Soviets and was even a member of the ultra-conservative John Birch society. One would be hard pressed to find a more anti-Soviet, anti-communist person in Congress at the time. This incident also made McDonald the only US congressman to be killed by the USSR during the Cold War-albeit in a roundabout way. KAL 007 was en route from New York City with a layover in Anchorage, Alaska and from there was supposed to arrive in Seoul, South Korea. The flight strayed into Soviet airspace because of a navigational error.

The incident sparked one of the most tense moments in the renewed Cold War of the early 1980s that began with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan as the 40th President of the United States and also the oldest ever elected to the office. It led to an escalation of anti-Soviet sentiment, especially in the United States. The Soviet Union initially denied knowledge of the incident but later admitted to shooting down the aircraft after almost a week, and even then was not telling the whole story of what they had done or how it had happened. The Polituro of the USSR took the line that the incident was an act of provocation by the USA. The USSR thought that the flight navigation data had been altered-perhaps during the Anchorage layover-to take the wrong flight path to test the Soviet Union's military preparedness, or to even provoke an out and out war. The USA accused the USSR of obstructing search and rescue operations. Also the USSR's military suppressed evidence sought by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) investigation, including the flight data recorders, which were eventually released nine years later when the USSR had ceased to exist.

As a result of the incident, the United States altered tracking procedures for aircraft departing from Alaska, while interface of the autopilot used on airliners was redesigned to make it more failsafe. President Reagan ordered the US military to make the Global Positioning System (GPS) available for civilian use so that navigational errors like that of KAL 007 could be averted in the future.

KAL 007 was a Boeing 747-230B and carried 246 passengers and 23 crewmembers. The aircraft had an unusually high ratio of passengers to crew due to employees of Korean Airlines using free tickets (deadheading) for vacations and crewmembers returning back home after working flights already. There were 80 unused seats and twenty-two children under the age of twelve aboard. 130 passengers planned to connect to other destinations such as Tokyo, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolin, Senator Steven Symms of Idaho and Representative Carroll J. Hubbard of Kentucky were on board 007's sister flight-KAL 015, which flew 15 minutes behind KAL 007. They were also headed to Seoul in order to attend ceremonies of the 30 year anniversary of the US-Korean Mutual Defense Treaty.

After taking off from Anchorage, the aircraft turned left, seeking its assigned route JetRoute 501 (J501) which would take it over the navigational beacon at Bethel, Alaska. Here the aircraft would enter the northern-most of 5 50 mile wide airways known as the (NOPAC) or North Pacific routes, the bridge between the Alaska and Japanese coasts. KAL 007's particular airway R-20 (Romeo 20), passed just 17.5 miles (28.2km) from Soviet airspace off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. There were two navigational systems in use at the time for commercial aircraft, each of which was required for different phases of the flight. The inertial navigation (INS) mode, where the aircraft follows a set of pre-programmed waypoints and the HEADING mode, where the autopilot flies an aircraft along a constant magnetic heading. The Anchorage VOR (VHF Omni-directional radio range) was not operational at the time because of maintenance. The crew was notified of this fact, but this wasn't seen as a problem because the captain could still check his position at the VOR beacon at Bethel, Alaska, 346 miles (557km) away. However, the aircraft had to navigate on a magnetic heading to the Bethel beacon before it could start to use the INS mode to follow the waypoints that comprised route Romeo-20 around the coast of the USSR to Seoul. Since this leg was undertaken in the dark pilotage (using visual fixed points of reference on the ground or sea to check position) could not be used to assist the crew in navigating the route.

At about 10 minutes after take-off, KAL 007, flying on a heading of 245 degrees, began to deviate to the north of its assigned route to Bethel; it would continue to fly this way for the next 5 and a half hours. ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) simulations and analysis of the flight data recorder determined that this deviation was probably caused by the aircraft's navigation system operating in HEADING mode, after the point it should have been switched to INS mode. According to the ICAO, the autopilot was not in the INS mode for one of two reasons. Either the crew did not switch the autopilot to INS mode or they selected the INS mode, but didn't activate, as the aircraft had already deviated off track by more than 7.5 nautical miles (13.9km) tolerance permitted by the inertial navigation computer. In both scenarios, the autopilot remained in HEADING mode, and the problem wasn't detected by the crew.

KAL's divergence prevented the aircraft from transmitting its position via short range VHF radio. It therefore requested its sister flight-015 to relay reports to air traffic control on its behalf. At 14:43 GMT KAL 007 directly transmitted a change of its estimated time of arrival (ETA) for its next waypoint to the flight service stations at Anchorage. However, it did this using high frequency (HF) instead of VHF (Very High Frequency). High frequency transmissions are able to carry a longer distance than VHF but VHF is preferred by flight crews because it is not so vulnerable to static and interference. The inability to establish direct radio communications to be able to transmit their position directly did not alert the pilots of 007 to their ever increasing divergence. Halfway between Bethel and waypoint NABIE, KAL 007 passed through the southern portion of the North American Air Defense buffer zone. This zone, monitored intensively by the NSA (National Security Agency) is north of Romeo 20 and off-limits to civilian aircraft.

KAL 007 continued its journey, its rate of deviation ever increasing-60 nautical miles (110km) off course at waypoint NABIE, 100 nautical miles off course at waypoint NUKKS and 160 nautical miles (300 km) off course at waypoint NEEVA until it reached the Kamchatka Peninsula. The reasons put forward for the aircraft's deviation range from the pilots lack of knowledge about the situation to a planned and intentional deviation. Both sides of the argument note that the pilots from Bethel onwards had several sources of information that could have alerted them to their increasing deviation from their planned route.

The horizontal situation indicator (HSI) should have alerted the pilots of their course deviation. The needle of each pilot's HSI, capable of showing a deviation of only 8 miles (13km) should have been "pegged" all the way to the side. The pilots, therefore should have been aware they were at least 8 miles off course. Despite this at 13:49 GMT, the pilots were reporting they were on course, whereas 50 minutes after takeoff from Anchorage, military radar at King Salmon, Alaska saw they were more than 12.6 miles (20.3km) off course. The deviation exceeded the expected accuracy of the INS (2 nautical miles or 3.7km an hour) by a factor of 6. The pilots should also have been aware of the aircraft's serious deviation now, much more than 12 miles (19km) because 007 was too far off course for the pilots to make VHF radio reports, instead relying on their sister flight KAL 015 three times in total to do this for them. At one point in this part of its flight (14:43 GMT) 007 put a call through navigational "hookup" the International Flight Service Station on HF. KAL 007, now too far to speak directly with Anchorage controllers through VHF was transmitting its messages indirectly using HF. At another point of this section of the flight, at waypoint NABIE, 007 was too far north to make radar contact with the VHF air traffic control relay station on St. Paul's Island-KAL 015 relayed for 007.

The message was a change in ETA for the next waypoint (NEEVA), delaying by 4 minutes the ETA that KAL 015 had previously relayed for 007. Since a revised ETA could only be calculated by means of readout information presented by 007's Inertial Navigation Systems Control Display unit, pilot and co-pilot were once again presented with the opportunity of verifying their position and becoming aware of their enormous deviation. The contrary wind conditions of 007 and 015: When 007 passed out of Kamchatka airspace and was a few minutes into international airspace, over the Sea of Okhotsk, it was heading in the direction of Terpenie Bay on the west shore of Sakhalin Island. At the same minute (18:05 GMT) that Major Osipovich in his Sukhoi Su-15 interceptor fell in behind KAL 007 and reports to ground controllers "am observing" 007 was off course and 015, on course many miles away, and about 15 minutes behind 007, comparing wind velocity and direction. KAL 015 is encountering tailwinds while 007 is encountering headwinds: KAL 015: "Um Um We are now having an unexpected strong tailwind. How much do you get there? How much and in which direction? KAL 007: "206. Ask how many knots...? "KAL 007": "Ah! You got so much! We still got headwind. Headwind 215 degrees, 15 knots." KAL 015: "Is it so? But according to flight plan wind direction 360, 15 knots approximately." KAL 007: "Well it may be like this." Captain Chun (of Flt 007) by accepting these irreconcilables, has lost his last chance to escape.

Weather Radar: There was one last navigational aid to warn the crew. With consoles at the knees of both pilot and co-pilot, the plane's weather radar could have alerted them, both over Kamchatka and later over Sakhalin, to the fact they were no longer flying over water, as they ought to have been. Weather radar has 2 modes-land mapping for clear weather (when its possible to look down and see water or land masses) and weather surveillance mode for cloudy weather, when it is necessary to "see through" clouds in order to detect dangerous thunderstorms. KAL 007's mapping mode most likely in weather surveillance mode because of bad weather at the time. The ICAO's meteorological analysis concluded that "there was extensive coverage of low, medium and high level clouds over souther Kamchatka associated with an active cold front. ICAO's analysis of KAL 007's weather radar functioning stated, "it was concluded that the radar was not functioning properly or that ground mapping capability was not used. According to the ICAO, an indicator of pilot unawareness of the deviation of their flight and the danger they were in was the casual cockpit conversation at the times that awareness of deviation into hostile airspace would have increased tension and precluded this.

The image at the top is an artist's rendition of the same type of Korean 747 involved in the catastrophe. The second image is of the intended flight path of 007 with the deviation from it noted. I hope to be back with the rest of this series very soon. I don't think it will be that long. I wanted to talk about some other historical eras on the blog and thought this would be a good subject to start with. I do intend to stay mostly with ancient Rome up to a certain point but would like to do other topics here and there as well to prevent boredom (mine anyway:) from staying on one subject constantly. I do hope to be back with Augustus and his era very soon-by mid -September if not before. Peace and be well to anyone stopping by!

Here are some links that I hope will be helpful or interesting and will have more in the future posts. Congressman McDonald HERE and an earlier incident in March of 1978 involving the shooting and forced landing of a Korean Airlines jet in 1978 HERE