Korean Air Lines Flight 007 ( KAL 007 , KE 007 ) was a Korean Air Lines civilian airliner that was shot down by Soviet jet interceptors on September 1, 1983, over the Sea of Japan, just west of Sakhalin island over prohibited Soviet airspace. All 269 passengers and crew aboard were killed, including Lawrence McDonald, a sitting member of the United States Congress. The aircraft was en route from New York City via Anchorage to Seoul when it strayed into prohibited Soviet airspace because of a navigational error.
The Soviet Union initially denied knowledge of the incident, but later admitted shooting the aircraft down, claiming that it was on a spy mission. The Politburo said it was a deliberate provocation by the United States, to test the Soviet Union's military preparedness, or even to provoke a war. The United States accused the Soviet Union of obstructing search and rescue operations. Furthermore, the Soviet military suppressed evidence sought by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) investigation, notably the flight data recorders, which were eventually released nine years later after a change of government.
The incident was one of the most tense moments of the Cold War, and resulted in an escalation of anti-Soviet sentiment, particularly in the United States. The opposing points of view on the incident were never fully resolved; consequently, several groups continue to dispute official reports and offer alternate theories of the event. The subsequent release of transcripts and flight recorders by the Russian Federation has addressed some details.
As a result of the incident, the United States altered tracking procedures for aircraft departing Alaska, while the interface of the autopilot used on airliners was redesigned to make it more failsafe. President Ronald Reagan ordered the U.S. 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.
Details of the flight
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was a commercial Boeing 747-230B (Serial Number CN20559/186, registration: HL7442, formerly D-ABYH operated by Condor Airlines) built in 1971 flying from New York City, United States to Seoul, South Korea. The aircraft departed Gate 15, 35 minutes behind its scheduled departure time of 23:50 EDT on August 30, 1983 (0350 UTC, August 31). Carrying 246 passengers and 23 crew members, the aircraft took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport. After refueling at Anchorage International Airport in Anchorage, Alaska, the aircraft, piloted on this leg of the journey by Captain Chun Byung-in, departed for Seoul at 1300 UTC (4:00 AM Alaska Time) on August 31, 1983.
The nationalities of the passengers were as follows:
*Toll included:76 passengers, 23 active crew and 6 deadheading crew.
The aircrew had an unusually high ratio of crew to passengers. Twelve passengers occupied the upper deck first class, while in business almost all of 24 seats were taken; in economy class, approximately 80 seats did not contain passengers. There were 22 children under the age of 12 aboard. U.S. congressman Lawrence McDonald from Georgia, who at the time was also the second president of the conservative John Birch Society, was on the flight. One hundred thirty passengers planned to connect to other destinations such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Senator Steven Symms of Idaho, and Representative Carroll J. Hubbard, Jr. of Kentucky were aboard sister flight KAL 015, which flew 15 minutes behind KAL 007; they were headed to Seoul, Korea in order to attend the ceremonies for the 30 year anniversary of the U.S.-Korea Mutual Defense Treaty.
Flight deviation from assigned route
After taking off from Anchorage, the flight was instructed by ATC to turn to a heading of 220 degrees. Approximately 90 seconds later, ATC directed the flight to "proceed direct Bethel when able." Upon arriving over Bethel, flight 007 would enter the northernmost of five 50-mile (80 km) wide airways, known as the NOPAC (North Pacific) routes, that bridge the Alaskan and Japanese coasts. KAL 007's particular airway, R-20 ( Romeo 20 ), passes just 17.5 miles (28.2 km) from Soviet airspace off the Kamchatka coast.
The auto pilot system had four basic control modes: INS, HEADING, VOR/LOC and ILS. When the INS navigation systems were properly programmed with the filed flight plan waypoints, the pilot could turn the auto pilot mode selector switch to the INS position and the plane would then automatically track the programmed INS course line, provided it was headed in the proper direction and within 7.5 nautical miles of the INS course line. The HEADING mode of the autopilot would normally be engaged sometime after takeoff to comply with vectors from ATC, and then after receiving appropriate ATC clearance, to guide the plane to a position within the required 7.5 miles, so that the INS mode could then be engaged.
The Anchorage VOR beacon was not operational because of maintenance. The crew received a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) of this fact, which was not seen as a problem as the captain could still check his position at the next VORTAC beacon at Bethel, 346 miles (557 km) away. However the aircraft was required to maintain the assigned heading of 220 degrees, until it could receive the signals from Bethel, then it could fly direct to Bethel, as instructed by ATC, by centering the VOR "to" course deviation indicator (CDI) and then engaging the auto pilot in the VOR/LOC mode. Then, when over the Bethel beacon, the flight could start using mode to follow the waypoints comprising route Romeo-20 around the coast of the U.S.S.R. to Seoul.
At about 10 minutes after take-off, KAL 007, flying on a heading of 245 degrees, began to deviate to the right (north) of its assigned route to Bethel; it would continue to fly on this constant heading for the next five and a half hours.
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) simulation and analysis of the flight data recorder determined that this deviation was probably caused by the aircraft's auto pilot system operating in mode, after the point that it should have been switched to the mode. According to the ICAO, the autopilot was not operating in the mode for one of two reasons. Either the crew did not switch the autopilot to the mode (shortly after Cairn Mountain) or they did select the mode, but it did not activate as the aircraft had already deviated off track by more than the 7.5 nautical miles (13.9 km) tolerance permitted by the inertial navigation computer. In both scenarios, the autopilot remained in the mode, and the problem was not detected by the crew.
At 28 minutes after take-off, civilian radar at Kenai, on the eastern shore of Cook Inlet and with radar coverage 175 miles (282 km) west of Anchorage, tracked KAL 007 5.6 miles (9.0 km) north of where it should have been.
When KAL 007 did not reach Bethel at 50 minutes after takeoff, military radar at King Salmon, Alaska, tracked KAL 007 at 12.6 nautical miles (23.3 km) north of where it should have been. However, there is no evidence to indicate that civil air traffic controllers or military radar personnel at Elmendorf Air Force Base (who were in a position to receive the King Salmon radar output) were aware of KAL 007's deviation in real-time, and therefore able to warn the aircraft. It had exceeded its permissible leeway of deviation sixfold, 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) of error being the maximum expected drift from course if the inertial navigation system was activated.
KAL 007's divergence prevented the aircraft from transmitting its position via shorter range very high frequency radio (VHF). It therefore requested KAL 015, also en route to Seoul, to relay reports to air traffic control on its behalf. KAL 007 requested KAL 015 to relay its position three times in total. At 1443 UTC, KAL 007 directly transmitted a change of estimated time of arrival for its next waypoint, NEEVA, to the international flight service station at Anchorage, but it did so over the longer range high frequency radio (HF) rather than VHF. HF transmissions are able to carry a longer distance than VHF, but are vulnerable to interference and static; VHF are clearer with less interference, and preferred by flight crews. The inability to establish direct radio communications to be able to transmit their position directly did not alert the pilots of KAL 007 of their ever increasing divergence and was not considered unusual by air traffic controllers. 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 National Security Agency assets, is north of Romeo 20 and off-limits to civilian aircraft.
KAL 007 continued its journey, ever increasing its deviation—60 nautical miles (110 km) off course at waypoint NABIE, 100 nautical miles (190 km) off course at waypoint NUKKS, and 160 nautical miles (300 km) off course at waypoint NEEVA—until it reached the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Flight crew awareness of deviation
The reasons put forward for the aircraft's deviation range from a lack of situational awareness by the pilots (ICAO), to a planned and intentional deviation (Pearson), to an INS programming error by 10 degrees of longitude, during the inserting of the ramp starting position, by the Flight E
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