Issue Date: September 09, 1983
South Korean Passenger Plane Shot Down After Violating Soviet Airspace; 269 Aboard Killed
· Conflicting Accounts Emerge
· Initial Reaction
· U.S., Japanese Find No Traces
· U.S. Admits Spy Plane Was Nearby
· Reagan Announces Mild Sanctions
· Soviets Admit 'Stopping' Flight
· U.N. Security Council Debate
· Shultz, Gromyko Meet in Madrid
Conflicting Accounts Emerge
A South Korean commercial airliner en route from New York to Seoul was shot down Sept. 1 after overflying strategically sensitive Soviet territory. All 240 passengers and 29 crew members were believed killed when the plane, a Boeing 747, disappeared in the Sea of Japan after being struck by a heat-seeking missile launched by a Soviet jet fighter.
According to Korean Air Lines, the dead passengers included 81 South Koreans, 61 Americans, 28 Japanese, 16 Filipinos, 10 Canadians, six Thais, four Australians and one each from India, Malaysia, Sweden and Vietnam. The 29 crew members were all South Korean. Among the U.S. passengers was Rep. Larry P. McDonald (D, Ga.), chairman of the extreme right-wing John Birch Society. [See 1983 Deaths: McDonald, Representative Lawrence Patton]
The downing of the plane, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, sparked an international outcry and raised questions about Soviet responses to nonmilitary infringements of their territory. In 1978, a Soviet plane had shot down a South Korean commercial jetliner, killing two passengers and forcing it to land on a frozen lake near Murmansk. Since 1978, navigational equipment had been improved considerably, prompting speculation as to how Flight 007 had deviated from its scheduled route into Soviet airspace. [See 1978 World News: Moscow Frees Korean Pilot, Navigator]
Flight 007 had departed New York at 11:50 p.m. on Aug. 30 and later made a scheduled refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska. The flight left Anchorage for Seoul at 10:00 a.m. Eastern daylight time Aug. 31 with a new crew headed by Chun Byung In, an experienced former South Korean air force pilot. The plane had been assigned to the northernmost of three internationally established flight paths from Anchorage to Seoul.
At approximately 11:00 a.m. Korean time Sept. 1, about four hours after leaving Anchorage, Flight 007 notified Tokyo's Narita air traffic control that it had passed a routine checkpoint south of the Kamchatka Peninsula, site of the Petropavlovsk naval base and other Soviet military installations. However, it later emerged that the plane had incorrectly reported its position and had actually overflown the Kamchatka Peninsula, where it was picked up by Soviet radar. The plane then apparently continued in a straight line westward over the Sea of Okhotsk instead of along its scheduled route, which dipped south. Soviet radar tracked the jetliner for two and a half hours as it flew toward Sakhalin Island, where other Soviet strategic bases were located.
At 3:12 a.m. Korean time, according to U.S. intelligence tapes of air-to-ground communications by two Soviet interceptor planes with their ground control, the pilot of an SU-15 supersonic jet reported visual contact with the South Korean plane, identified in the transmissions only as "the target." The SU-15, which sighted the Korean plane near Sakhalin Island, locked its radar on the target and performed a maneuver used by military aircraft to identify themselves as "friend or foe," eliciting no response from the South Korean plane, according to the U.S. tapes.
At 3:18 a.m., according to the U.S. tapes, the SU-15 reported that the target's navigational lights were burning and its strobe light flashing. In the next few minutes the fighter apparently approached to within 1.2 miles (two kilometers) of the passenger plane, noting again its blinking strobe light.
At 3:23 a.m., Flight 007 radioed Narita that it had climbed to an altitude of 35,000 feet (more than 10,000 meters) and reported its position as 113 miles (182 kilometers) south of the northeastern tip of Hokkaido. At the time, the plane was actually north of Hokkaido and more than 100 miles (150 kilometers) off course.
According to the U.S. tapes, the Soviet pilot fired one or possibly two missiles at the target at 3:26 a.m. "I have executed the launch," the pilot was reported to have said. "The target is destroyed." Narita at the same time recorded an unintelligible message from the South Korean plane. Shortly thereafter, the jetliner disappeared from radar screens, apparently crashing into the Sea of Japan.
Narita air traffic controllers tried to locate the missing plane, but after nearly two hours informed South Korea that the plane had disappeared. Initial reports suggested that the missing plane had been forced to land on Sakhalin Island. Because South Korea did not have diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, Japan inquired whether the plane had landed on Soviet territory and was told it had not. Using electronic data collected in apparently routine monitoring, U.S. and Japanese intelligence services established that evening that the plane had been shot down. At 7:15 p.m., South Korean Minister of Culture and Information Lee Jin Hie announced on national television that the plane had been downed and no survivors had been recovered.
Initial Reaction
Accounts of the downing of the plane that began to emerge Sept. 1 were sketchy and marked by rhetoric that intensified steadily over the next few days.
The Soviet Union Sept. 1 claimed that a plane flying without navigational lights had violated Soviet airspace and resisted efforts by Soviet planes to guide it. A statement carried by the official press agency, Tass, said "the intruder plane did not react to the signals and warnings from the Soviet fighters and continued its flight in the direction of the Sea of Japan." [See 1983 South Korean Passenger Plane Shot Down After Violating Soviet Airspace...Soviet Statements on Downing of South Korean Airliner]
U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz the same day charged that the U.S.S.R. had downed the South Korean plane, knowing that it was an unarmed civilian airliner. Shultz offered an unusual glimpse into U.S. intelligence gathering operations when he disclosed that the U.S. routinely monitored Soviet military transmissions. A replay of electronically recorded communications by a Soviet fighter pilot had indicated that he had sighted the South Korean plane, fired on it and reported it destroyed, Shultz revealed. Shultz acknowledged that Flight 007 had been flying over Soviet territory but offered no explanation of why the jetliner had strayed so far off course. [See 1983 South Korean Passenger Plane Shot Down After Violating Soviet Airspace...Statement by Secretary of State on Downing of Korean Airliner]
President Reagan Sept. 1 condemned the jet's destruction as a "horrifying act of violence" and demanded an explanation from the U.S.S.R. Reagan, who was vacationing at his California ranch, decided to return to Washington the following day. The decision was apparently taken after White House spokesman Larry Speakes, in an initial statement, had told reporters that the President would not interrupt his vacation. Reagan had never previously left his isolated ranch because of an international crisis.
The Soviet Union Sept. 2 issued a statement that stopped short of admitting it had shot down the South Korean plane. According to a Tass account, a plane carrying out a "preplanned act" for "special intelligence aims" had overflown Soviet territory. Tass said a Soviet plane had fired tracer shells to warn the intruder plane that it had violated Soviet airspace.
Shultz the same day assailed the U.S.S.R. for its "continuing effort to cover the facts of the inhumane Soviet attack on an unarmed civilian airliner." Allegations that the plane had been on a spy mission and that it had not responded to Soviet warnings were "false claims," Shultz said. "The world is waiting for the Soviet Union to tell the truth," he added.
U.S., Japanese Find No Traces
U.S. military planes and Japanese patrol boats searching the northern Sea of Japan Sept. 2 discovered no wreckage or other evidence of the plane crash. Requests for permission to search Soviet waters were repeatedly denied.
Vladimir Pavlov, Soviet ambassador to Japan, the same day reported that "traces" of a plane crash had been found near Moneron Island, 30 miles (50 kilometers) southwest of Sakhalin Island. Pavlov did not specify whether the evidence could be linked to the South Korean plane.
Tass Sept. 3 accused the U.S. of "feverishly covering up traces of the provocation staged against the Soviet Union with the utilization of the South Korean plane." It was the first public admission by the U.S.S.R. that the previously unidentified intruder plane had been the Korean Air Lines jet. Tass said that the U.S. had failed to answer basic questions about Flight 007, such as how the plane had deviated 300 miles (500 kilometers) from its assigned course and why U.S. and Japanese ground controllers, allegedly knowing that the jetliner was off course, had not acted to correct the "rude violation of Soviet sovereignty."
The plane had been equipped with three separate navigational computers, known as inertial navigation systems. The devices were programmed with the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates along the scheduled flight path and were designed to keep the plane on course automatically without radio contact with the ground. The systems were known for their accuracy, according to aviation experts, who noted that a simultaneous failure of three independent computers was extremely unlikely. The experts also dismissed the possibility of an erroneous inserting of erroneous coordinates into the systems. The numbers were displayed before they were entered, minimizing the chance of a keyboarding error, the experts said, adding that entries made by one crew member were typically checked by another.
U.S. Admits Spy Plane Was Nearby
The U.S. Sept. 4 disclosed that a U.S. reconaissance plane had been in the vicinity of the Korean Air Lines jet when it passed over the Kamchatka Peninsula. The admission followed the suggestion by a Soviet general that the South Korean plane had been mistaken for a U.S. RC-135.
Col. Gen. Semyon Romanov, chief of the main headquarters staff of the air defense forces, in a statement carried by Tass Sept. 4, claimed that the South Korean plane "flew with extinguished lights, and its outlines resemble much those of the American reconaissance plane RC-135." The statement said a Soviet plane had made "repeated attempts" to guide the jetliner to a Soviet airfield using internationally recognized signals, such as waggling its wings and flashing its lights. "Neither waggling nor flashing, however, brought the necessary result," the statement said, adding that the 747's "strange behavior" supported Soviet contentions that it had been on a spy mission. [See 1983 South Korean Passenger Plane Shot Down After Violating Soviet Airspace...Soviet Statements on Downing of South Korean Airliner]
Romanov did not acknowledge that the plane had been shot down, saying only that a Soviet fighter had warned the jetliner by firing tracer shells on a course "parallel" to that of the 747. "The intruder plane continued the night in flight conditions at the height of 8,000 to 10,000 meters above the territory of the Soviet Union," the statement said.
The U.S. Sept. 4 revealed that an RC-135 had been flying a routine mission monitoring Soviet transmissions about missiles when it passed near the Korean Air Lines plane. A White House statement Sept. 5 clarified the relation of the two planes. "The closest point of approach of the two aircraft was approximately 75 nautical miles while the U.S. aircraft was in its mission orbit," according to the White House statement. "Later the U.S. aircraft crossed the path taken by the Korean airliner, but by then it was almost 300 miles away." The White House said the RC-135 had remained over international waters and had not ventured into Soviet airspace.
The White House disclosed that Soviet transmissions had initially identified both foreign planes as U.S. RC-135s. "As the Korean airliner strayed off course and overflew the Kamchatka Peninsula," according to the White House, "it was initially identified by the Soviets as an RC-135 and then as an unidentified aircraft." However, the U.S. discounted the possibility that the 747 had been taken for a U.S. spy plane at the time it was shot down.
The White House said the Soviets had "made no serious effort to identify the aircraft or to warn it. They did not appear to care what it was. Instead they were intent on killing it. If the Soviets made a mistake in identification, which stretches the imagination, they have not said so to date." President Reagan, in a nationally televised speech later that day, said the RC-135 had returned to its base an hour before the downing of the South Korean plane.
U.S. officials noted that the 747 had a distinctive shape with a large hump on the forward end of the upper fuselage. The RC-135, a modified Boeing 707, was considerably smaller and had a snub nose. The officials acknowledged that the planes could not be distinguished on radar screens but noted that, according to the U.S. transcript of the Soviet SU-15 fighter pilot, the pilot had made visual contact with the plane.
Reagan Announces Mild Sanctions
President Reagan, in a nationally televised speech Sept. 5, denounced the Soviet Union for what he described as the "Korean Air Line massacre." However, he avoided any major retaliatory initiatives, announcing several minor punitive measures that were widely viewed as symbolic and unlikely to have any appreciable effect on U.S.-Soviet relations.
Reagan said the attack on the South Korean plane had pitted "the Soviet Union against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere. From every corner of the globe, the word is defiance in the face of this unspeakable act and defiance of the system which excuses it and seeks to cover it up."