# The Truth about KAL 007 Shootdown? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 2, 2014, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211 "2014-07-02T19:13:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Suicide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Suicide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suicide)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/61 "2014-07-03T23:16:18Z")
now i’m more confused than ever, apparently there is still no definitive answer to my questions, that’s why this is still a mystery…if nothing else i think i’ll beleive the soviet commander who said he wasn’t sure what the plane was but shot it down anyway because it was the better of two lousy options, at least for him and siberia is concerned…do people here beleive this guy??? he’s a hero in russia and has never been disciplined so the russkies must think he didn’t fuckup ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/62 "2014-07-04T00:03:23Z")
> [@Suicide](#): > > I was talking to someone young about the 1980s incident where the Soviets shot down a Korean airliner, flight KAL 007, and realized a lot of questions are still unclear to this day…Internet research on this subject yields a lot of conflicting info…If anyone knows anything about this, could you answer the following: > > 1-Did the Soviets shoot down the plane accidentally or on purpose? > > 2-Did they know the plane was a civilian airliner or did they think it was an invading military plane or did they think it was something else or did they not know what it was? > > 3-Was the plane just an innocent civilian airliner or was it also a spy plane testing Soviet air defenses? > > 4-Why did the Soviets shoot down the plane? > > 5-A U.S. congressman was on the plane that was shot down, was that just a coincidence or did it have any significance? > Spasiba!!! All your questions have been indirectly answered in this thread. But here’s a direct summary. 1. The plane was shot down on purpose. 2. Those who decided to shoot down the plane thought it was probably a reconnaissance plane deliberately overflying a prohibited air zone. 3. In fact it was an innocent civilian airliner. 4. Answered in 2 above. 5. This was a coincidence of no significance. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/63 "2014-07-04T00:40:51Z")
> [@lisiate](#): > > 1. This was a coincidence of no significance. And nobody is more disappointed to find how insignificant he really is than a Congressman. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/64 "2014-07-04T01:18:10Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > There is also no particular reason a 747-based craft couldn’t have been hostile or intentionally in Soviet air space. Still, considering that the vast majority of 747s are civilian, it should always be assumed that a 747 is civilian until proven to be military or otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Suicide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Suicide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suicide)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/65 "2014-07-04T01:50:00Z")
answer no. 2 contradicts what the soviet commander says, that he didn’t know what the plane was…are you calling a former commie a liar? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/66 "2014-07-04T02:32:04Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Still, considering that the vast majority of 747s are civilian, it should always be assumed that a 747 is civilian until proven to be military or otherwise. It was near [Vladivostok](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladivostok), the Russian equivalent of area 51 as I understand it. Perhaps they feared an American aircraft had photographed something when the satellites weren’t looking. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/67 "2014-07-04T02:38:35Z")
Here’s the [excerpt from](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007)the Russian transcript released in 1993: > [@](#): > > General Kornukov (to Military District Headquarters-Gen. Kamensky): (5:47) “…simply destroy [it] even if it is over neutral waters? Are the orders to destroy it over neutral waters? Oh, well.” > Kamensky: We must find out, maybe it is some civilian craft or God knows who." > > Kornukov: “What civilian? [It] has flown over Kamchatka! It [came] from the ocean without identification. I am giving the order to attack if it crosses the State border.” It’s pretty clear from this that Kornukov thought KAL 007 wasn’t a civilian plane when he gave the order to shoot it down. ---
**Author:** ![Suicide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Suicide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suicide)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/68 "2014-07-04T02:53:06Z")
yeah right, russian transcript…how is that trustable? ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/69 "2014-07-04T03:00:00Z")
If you’re not going to accept a transcript of the conversation between the Soviet commanders who made the decision to answer this question: “Did they know the plane was a civilian airliner or did they think it was an invading military plane or did they think it was something else or did they not know what it was?” then I’m afraid no one here can answer your question. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/70 "2014-07-04T03:31:23Z")
> [@Suicide](#): > > yeah right, russian transcript…how is that trustable? That would depend upon whether they promoted the guy or executed him afterwards. I believe it for what my opinion is worth; the KAL flew near a super secret area and as far as the Russkies knew, it may have taken pictures or gathered other intelligence; they couldn’t know, and would never know if they let it get away. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/71 "2014-07-04T03:53:38Z")
> [@Suicide](#): > > answer no. 2 contradicts what the soviet commander says, that he didn’t know what the plane was…are you calling a former commie a liar? > [@Suicide](#): > > yeah right, russian transcript…how is that trustable? So - you trust the Russians, you don’t trust the Russians - which is it? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/72 "2014-07-04T04:42:52Z")
> [@simster](#): > > So - you trust the Russians, you don’t trust the Russians - which is it? That answer depends on which one feeds into the conspiracy theory, of course. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/73 "2014-07-04T12:49:02Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > No matter what, the prominent bulge of the 747 should have made it obvious that it was a 747. As I mentioned earlier, an analysis I read a while ago said the soviet fighters approached from below and behind, so the bulge, and tail markings and airline logo would be less obvious - especially at night against a dark sky. I don’t know how close they got, but if you’re in a high speed jet and about to blow something up in front of you, visual contact probably means half a mile to a mile or more, not alongside like a baggage cart train. From below, in the dark, with no cues, the size difference between a 707 and 747 is probably not that obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Suicide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Suicide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suicide)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/74 "2014-07-04T14:09:25Z")
apparently no one got disciplined in russia for this incident, and on the wikipedia page one of the guys involved is getting an award years later from putin, so whatever they did was commie 101 and by the red book and the right thing as far as the cccp went ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/75 "2014-07-04T14:11:50Z")
> [@Suicide](#): > > apparently no one got disciplined in russia for this incident, and on the wikipedia page one of the guys involved is getting an award years later from putin, so whatever they did was commie 101 and by the red book and the right thing as far as the cccp went If they sent the guy to a gulag, it would mean admitting to the world that the shoot down was in error. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/76 "2014-07-04T15:07:42Z")
> [@Suicide](#): > > apparently no one got disciplined in russia for this incident, and on the wikipedia page one of the guys involved is getting an award years later from putin, so whatever they did was commie 101 and by the red book and the right thing as far as the cccp went The USN also gave out medals after the IranAir shootdown. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/77 "2014-07-04T15:42:30Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > In any case, I would bet that _some_ shades were up and, even if not, there is always a light leak outlining the window. So, as a minimum the pilot would have seen a row of light rectangles/ovals punctuated here and there with fully lit rectangles/ovals (or whatever shape the windows were). > > ETA: How could they not take another look just to be one hundred percent certain? Why not fly across the nose of the Boeing with their wing lights flashing? There was no risk that they would then be warning it away - the Boeing could never have taken (successful) evasive action against a fully armed MIG. No, they wanted to shoot it down to make a point. For anyone who has never flown in close formation under low visibility conditions it is surprisingly difficult to make out details of another aircraft, even to the point of identifying the number of engines, tail configuration, or other typical identifying qualities. (FWIW, I have flown on observation aircraft researching aft turbulence behavior under various atmospheric conditions, so I have some amount of personal experience in this area.) As others have noted, during overseas flights cabin attendants instruct that all shades be drawn during the sleeping period, and the cabin lights are dimmed such that the amount of light radiated is minimal, especially from a pursuing aft view at FLIR missile intercept distances. It just isn’t that easy to make out other aircraft or objects in flight, as readily demonstrated by the large number of UFO reports made by otherwise credible and alert pilots. As for not taking a"another look just to be one hundred percent certain", _this was 1983_, the year that the United States and the Soviet Union came the closest to open conflict since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and indeed by the view of many historians, the closest the two superpowers actually came to a nuclear exchange. This was the year of Operation RYAN (mentioned above), the Petrov Incident, Reagan’s “Address to the Nation on Defense and National Security” (i.e. the “Star Wars” speech in which he introduced the US efforts to develop a ballistic missile defense system), and later the invasion of Greneda, and the NATO Able Archer 83 exercise (which simulated a coordinated nuclear attack in Europe, complete with new encrypted communication systems which the Soviets widely interpreted as a precursor to an actual attack). Select US government officials were at least privately discussing the inevitability of nuclear war and publicly warning of presumed Soviet numerical superiority in both conventional forces in Europe and nuclear arsenal. (Unlike the supposed “missile gap” that John Kennedy falsely campaigned to the presidency on, this gap was genuine, with the Soviets having developed and deployed several families of ICBM and SLBM systems with a variety of capabilities throughout the late 'Sixties and 'Seventies, while the US slowly upgraded the LGM-30 F/G ‘Minuteman II/III’ ICBM, haltingly developed the ‘MX’ system which would ultimately become the LGM-118A ‘Peacekeeper’, deployed the flawed UGM-73 ‘C-3 Poseidon’ and the behind-schedule UGM-96 ‘C-4 Polaris’ SLBM systems, and dicked around with the B-1B and B-2 strategic bombers.) For their part, the Soviets endured a chain of progressively terminally ill leaders (Brezhnev, Andropov, and then later Chernenko in early 1984) while the aging Politburo demagogs vied amongst themselves along frequently shifting power blocs and unrest in many of the Warsaw Pact client states. In short, everybody was paranoid. It was not a good time for any aircraft to be flying hundreds of miles off course in Soviet territory over an area where strategic weapons testing was regularly conducted. This would have been equivalent to a Soviet aircraft overflying, say, Edwards AFB in California or Nellis AFB in Nevada, to which the United States would have certainly responded vigorously and decisively. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think the background is that a well-crafted spying operation is designed to look like an innocuous event. The result of this is that a genuine innocuous event can end up looking like a well-crafted spying operation. Yes, exactly, although a perusal of history shows that most real conspiracies end up a disordered mess of poor planning and failed execution while most supposed conspiracies require such elaborate control and setup that there is really no way they could have been executed as theorized. Most successful spying depends on the indolence and lassitude of security organizations rather than the competence of the conspirators (e.g. the Cambridge Five, the Walker-Pelton spy ring, Aldrich Ames) and in retrospect it is typically an embarrassment that the obvious signs of subterfuge and conspiracy were available all along. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/78 "2014-07-04T17:00:20Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Yes, exactly, although a perusal of history shows that most real conspiracies end up a disordered mess of poor planning and failed execution while most supposed conspiracies require such elaborate control and setup that there is really no way they could have been executed as theorized. I wouldn’t disagree with a word of that, but the conspiracy here could have been as small as CIA project cell -\> KCIA contact -\> pressure on Captain Chun to mis-track and ignore warnings as long as he felt safe to do so. The assets to monitor and track the Soviet response, radar and otherwise, would have been in place and needed no special notice. No, I don’t think that’s what happened. But it’s more plausible than most CTs that require perfect lockstep precision and total \*omerta \*from hundreds of people, if not thousands. Only a few people - perhaps just two - would survive and need to keep their yaps shut. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/79 "2014-07-04T20:46:55Z")
The holy shitstorm of outrage should the Korean public ever discover that a commercial airliner was put in harm’s way in order to ineffectually test Soviet defense systems would be enough to make that a non-starter. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Suicide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Suicide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suicide)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211/80 "2014-07-05T01:45:23Z")
do u think the shootdown had any effect on speeding up the end of the cold war? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-kal-007-shootdown/692211.md?page=5)