Man who lost father in downing of Korean passenger jet in 1983 recalls struggle

I remember this sad incident almost like it was yesterday. I saw it on TV and it caused a stir in America too. Cold War tensions were high, many people esp. in Europe were scared.

Everything's different now. Fortunately that Armageddon nuclear war didn't happen. The Cold War ended peacefully. Hopefully the victims of KAL 007 are resting easier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007

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. The Boeing 747 airliner was en route from Anchorage to Seoul, but owing to a navigational mistake made by the crew, the airliner drifted from its original planned route and flew through Soviet prohibited airspace. The Soviet Air Forces treated the unidentified aircraft as an intruding U.S. spy plane, and destroyed it with air-to-air missiles, after firing warning shots. The Korean airliner eventually crashed into the sea near Moneron Island west of Sakhalin in the Sea of Japan. All 269 passengers and crew aboard were killed, including Larry McDonald, a United States representative. The Soviet Union found the wreckage under the sea two weeks later on September 15 and found the flight recorders in October, but this information was kept secret by the Soviet authorities until after the country's collapse.

The Soviet Union initially denied knowledge of the incident,[2] but later admitted to shooting down the aircraft, claiming that it was on a MASINT spy mission.[3] The Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union said it was a deliberate provocation by the United States[4] to probe the Soviet Union's military preparedness, or even to provoke a war. The US accused the Soviet Union of obstructing search and rescue operations.[5] The Soviet Armed Forces suppressed evidence sought by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) investigation, such as the flight recorders,[6] which were released ten years later, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[7]

As a result of the incident, the United States altered tracking procedures for aircraft departing from Alaska, and president Ronald Reagan issued a directive making American satellite-based radio navigation Global Positioning System freely available for civilian use, once it was sufficiently developed, as a common good.[8]

The Russians are such cruel people. There were many other non-lethal courses of action they could have taken, yet they chose the most violent and final way. They haven’t changed a bit.

Lots of cruel acts commited by all countries but only certain ones are selected to be on display in the western media.

ThubanToday  12:50 pm JST

Warning shots were fired.

It's restricted airspace, the air defence team has protocols they must follow because civilian airliners may have cameras installed on them.

Any other country would have done the same.

I didn't know much of the incident so looked into it a little and seems your claims are bogus which begs the question why you didn't.

Yes. it appears that Flight007 made a navigation error and strayed into Soviet airspace. That much is true.

However, some of the Soviet land based radar on the Kamchatka Peninsula were damaged which prevented them from properly identifying the aircraft as a civilian airliner. This info was never told to upper Soviet air command. If they were working properly, they would've been able to properly identify the aircraft as a 747.

As for warning shots; one of the Su-15 pilots stated that he fired gun rounds as warning shots but ammunition was armor-piercing not incendiary which meant that they wouldn't have been visible to the 007's pilots at night. Thus they were invisible warning shots. This is supported by the pilot's statements.

The pilot who shot down the plane stated he saw running lights and that he knew it was a Boeing airliner. So he shot it down knowing it was a Boeing airliner.

There was confusion among air command as to what to do. One stated that positive visual identification was necessary. Another said no and to shoot it down even if it was exiting Soviet airspace.

The soviet's command and communication were a joke.

The notion that the US or South Korea would use civilian airliners for spying is ludicrous. US spy planes like the U-2 and SR-71 flew over the Soviet Union constantly with impunity. Of the thousands of spy flights, only one U-2 was shot down. The SR-71 never. There was no need for the US or South Korea to use a KAL 747 as a spy place. It wasn't even remotely necessary.

And no, any other country would not have done the same.

There was no need for the US or South Korea to use a KAL 747 as a spy place.

There was some speculation at the time that it deliberately went off course to trigger the Soviet defense systems just to see how they might operate. Spying of a kind. Perhaps nonsense, but it's also difficult to understand how the KAL plane went off course as it did.

It was the second Korean airliner to go ‘off course’ over the USSR within a short period.

I remember it, I was sat at a caffè table by the lagoon in Venice when I saw the headline on a paper at the next table, never forgotten.

ThubanToday  

Any other country would have done the same

No they would not and did not, russian actual spy planes intruded in to NATO airspace repeatedly and not one as shot down.

MilesTeg, thanks for this, details I was not aware of.

Hello Kitty 321

It was the second Korean airliner to go ‘off course’ over the USSR within a short period

So what? Irrelevant and in no way justifies murdering 269 people.

I would only assume the communication between Masashi Yamaguchi' and his mother grew as she respectfully witness him to grow up as a reminder of the man she married, a hard working respectful individual. In between mental relapses she regained her mental health through looking at his accomplishments and perhaps as she grew older the more she talked to Masashi about his father. True love can make you silently strong, but also mentally weak. She did the best she could to raise her family, and little did Masashi know the more she endured the test of time perhaps heart broken until she eventually died. TIme waits for no one, it never stands still, no two days are the same. The most beautiful thing I got out of reading this story was Masashi can remember his dad as a hard worker and his mother a faithful women. He can honor both mother and father as a representative of bereaved families that continue to get the message out about the KAL 007 incident.

All these idiots on here condoning an act of murder by the Russians (it wasn't the last time Russia shot down an airliner was it).

Wouldn't have been impossible to recognise the jet as a commercial Korean Air by putting escort jets alongside it. The Russians hassle Japan airspace on a regular basis.

As aspyrgend correctly says, nobody else shoots down Russian fighter jets constantly straying into the wrong airspace.

It was and is murder of civilian passengers. Take a look at what Russia is doing in 2023.

Eternal shame on Russia. Nothing has changed all these years later. Still shooting down civilian planes. Still killing unarmed civilians. Still lying to the world.

Rest in Peace to all on Flight 007.