Saving Face in Asia

On September 1, 1983, Korean Air Lines flight 007, on its way from Anchorage, Alaska to Seoul, Korea, carrying 269 passengers and crew, strayed off its intended course and entered into Soviet airspace. A Soviet Sukhoi 15 fighter jet, piloted by Major Gennadie Osipovich, was sent up to destroy the intruding Boeing 747.


The referrenced URLs that speak about the incident including several conspiracies that could possibly have happened and including a malfunction within the Inertial guidance system:

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

www.kimsoft.com...

aeroweb.lucia.it...

www.rescue007.org...

findarticles.com...

There is a simpler explanation than conspiracy or anything else. This would be called Human Error by the flight crew. Human Error would cause the flight crew to loose face. In Asia, no one would want the flight crew to loose face. So, the obvious operator error would not even be an issue when determining the bird (747) straying off course.

What if the bird (747) never strayed but flew correctly? One thing that indicates that this is what happened is the inertial navigation system. If the nav systen had a problem, it would never come operational and instead indicate a malfunction. An intertial navigation systen has to locate and position the gyros local verticle. Using the accelerometers it would slew to point to true north. It does this quickly by the magnetic north compass being accurate and slower if the magnetic north compass is not working properly.

Once the nav systems finds true north, it indicates that it is operational.. At this point, a crewman fat fingers the latitude and longitude into the destination. In the case of the flight to Seoul, Korea, it would require two destination due to a dog leg around a no fly restricted airspace in Russia. A top secret military installation that the Russians protect aggressively.

Destination one should be the flight plan to Japan at coordinates Latitude 37 degrees North and Longitude of 140 degress East. The second destination should be Seoul, Korea using Latitude 37.1 degrees North and 126.58 Longitude East. This will take the Bird out over the Sea of Japan and a 90 degree right turn East into Seoul, Korea avoiding the restricted airbase in Russia.

However, what if the human error occurred when the coordinates were updated for the dog leg flight plan. What if the destination two (Seoul, Korea) were entered as destination one. Everything is fine and no one the wiser. The flight officer would need to be checking his other instruments closely to realize the error that was made caused most instruments to be off from what they should read. I really doubt on a routine flight that after entering the dog leg into the navigational system and allowing the autopilot to hold course anyone would check.

So, what would happen? The Bird would be on autopilot flying to Seoul without the aid of a dog leg destination. Instead of flying to the Sea of Japan the bird would be flying straight into Seoul. The restricted airspace and territorial waters of Russia would be encroached upon by the 747. So, the Korean flight crew would loose face and the Russian base commander capitalizes by making many more bonehead decisions including the downing of the passenger plane by Russian jets.

The wrong conclusion drawn by the crash investigation team has led to the speculation of conspiracy theories.

A lot of very very detailed work has gone into researching this matter and the best I have read is Shootdown the verdict on KALOO7 RW Johnson

As far as the cold war goes this story doesn't get much better and thus there has been as much disinformation put out there by way of films even Presidents and senior generals all putting their spin on what they want us to think happen....as any story I know of.

But lets stick to the facts.
There were no fewer than six pilots on board the aircraft and able to fly it.
The pilot in the drivers seat so to speak was a 747 test pilot with 6,000 hours in 747s which back then when the 747 was still newish was a considerable achievement. And in addition to that he was the top pilot in the Korean system responsible to fly the President. Like most Korean Air Line pilots he was ex military and a very very good fighter pilot. And may well have been part of the Korean CIA
One of the most interesting things he did before he left Alaska was to take on board extra fuel and off load all the freight (anyone who is an airline pilot will understand the significance of this)
Now right away after leaving Alaska the plane went off course and flew out into Soviet territory.
Co incidentally at the time when this was taking place there was a US satallite overflying the area as (accidentally) an aircraft flew into Soviet airspace setting off all the alarms which such an incursion would produce
Two Korean airliners took off from Alaska when this was happening and the other one covered for the off course airline giving it's calls while the one that got shot down kept radio silence.
The Soviet fighters had a difficult job finding the Korean airliner that had come into Soviet airspace as it was according to them being flown like a fighter plane without lights.
But eventaully they did get a shot at it.
If they used a heat seeking missile then on taking out one of four engines the Korean airliner would have been flyable and in fact the Korean announced that the airliner had landed in Russia.
But there was a tremedous explosion heard by fishermen below and when both the Soviets and the Koreans turned up to search for look there was nothing bigger that could be held in ones hand as far as bits left.

So there you have it.
As far as disinformation goes I think the US authorities deserve 7 out of ten for their effort- the Soviet response gets a 4 from me (but hopefully they will have learnt something from it)
As a military excersie the whole thing gets a 8 out of 10
As a political damage control I give the US another high grade 6 out of 10

Now there is a post script to this.
The US got all indignant about this "innocent" airliner being shot down and said nasty things about USSR. But a semi private organistaion The New York Habour Authority owner of some twin towers in New York- took international law into their own hands and stopped Soviet foreign minister Gromyko from visiting the United Nations to make his speech.

What is this about "what comes around goes around" or is it
"vengence is mine saith the lord I will repay" I don't know....