intruder
On August 31, 1983, a Korean Airlines Boeing 747-230B flew flight KE007 from New York to Seoul. Interim landing for refueling took place in Alaska near the city of Anchorage. The direct line between Anchorage and Seoul passes through Kamchatka, the Sea of Okhotsk and Sakhalin Island, but it was impossible to fly along this route: there were many secret Soviet military installations there. The standard route between Alaska and Korea was not in a straight line, but in an arc around Kamchatka.
However, KE007 deviated greatly from course and flew in a straight line. Around 17:30 on September 1, the aircraft entered Soviet airspace and flew over Kamchatka, then departed and continued to fly over the neutral waters of the Sea of Okhotsk (not recognized as part of the USSR). At 18:02 Boeing again breached the USSR border and flew over the southern part of Sakhalin Island.
This time he was stopped by a Soviet Su-15 fighter piloted by Major Gennady Osipovich. After several warning shots from a cannon, he fired two guided air-to-air missiles at Boeing as per the ground-transmitted command order. One of them hit the target, causing serious damage to the tail section of the aircraft and crashing into the La Perouse Strait four minutes later.
Negligence or autopilot error?
The maximum deviation from the intended route was 500 km, and this is a lot at first glance. To understand how this is possible, it is necessary to remember how people in ancient times determined their position. On land, it is appropriate to rely on conspicuous landmarks such as roads, rivers, lakes, settlements or some unusual relief. This worked only in familiar terrains, while in distant lands it was necessary either to use the services of guides or to follow the path closely.
Since there was nothing to notice at sea (and Boeing mostly flew over water), former sailors could not navigate the sea. For most of human history, ships were only coastal navigation – nose to nose, that’s why lighthouses were so important. The best sailors could tell latitude from the stars, but to calculate longitude it was necessary to know the exact time. Therefore, navigating the high seas was impossible until the invention of an accurate mechanical watch – the stopwatch – which, along with the compass, became the captain’s most important instrument. But even with them, correct positioning required a seasoned navigator and significant effort.
The same problems were inherited by aviators from sailors; the only difference was that the ground or landmarks were better visible from above. By the middle of the 20th century, radio beacons became commonplace, but they did not cover the entire Earth, and using them was much more difficult than pressing a single button on a modern GPS receiver. So there is nothing strange in the fact that the crew of Flight KE007 missed by 500 km. On the contrary, efforts had to be made to detect a navigation error.
Flight KE007 was to be flown on autopilot to keep the plane on course. To do this, the ship is equipped with an inertial navigation system (INS) – it can be imagined as an automaton that records how far and in which direction the aircraft is flying and, based on that, guides it to the target. Alternatively, the autopilot may keep the aircraft on a predetermined magnetic course (with a compass) before entering course.
According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the most likely cause of the deviation was attributed precisely to the autopilot switching between these two modes. After taking off from Anchorage, the autopilot remained in course-keeping mode instead of INS, which explains why Boeing was flying in a straight line at 245°. Pilots either couldn’t select the INS mode for some reason or it was selected but not turned on. When INS is selected according to the on-board computer program, the system enters the READY state and does not give control commands. You must be closer than 13.9 km to the selected airline to switch to FOLLOW mode.
Thus, if the overshoot is too large, the autopilot remains in magnetic heading mode.
The pilots needed to realize this and fix the problem.
“I knew it was a civilian plane”
The Soviet air defense system detected the Korean Boeing using radar. The radar does not reveal the identity of the target or the presence of passengers on board; it only reports range, altitude, direction, speed, and in some cases the number of jet engines. The situation was further complicated in those years by the regular flight of American military aircraft over military bases in the Kuril Islands, which led to the dismissal of many Soviet officers for failing to take down the violators. Also, a new missile was tested at the Kura test site in Kamchatka during flight KE007. They were observed by the American reconnaissance aircraft Boeing RC-135 and at one point flew close to the Korean aircraft.
The Soviet air defense command mistook the passenger Boeing for a reconnaissance aircraft, and at first admired its arrogance. According to the current transcript of the speech, at 17:49, Captain Solodkov, following the plane, before re-entering Soviet airspace, aforementioned: “Command, we do not understand what is happening, it flies directly to our island” [Сахалин] To the Bay of Patience. Seems suspicious to me, I don’t think the enemy is that stupid, maybe one of us?
When Major Osipovich intercepted the plane, he tried to identify the type and establish a connection. As it turned out later, the radio transmitter was not tuned to the correct frequency for communication with the civilian crew. In some publications about the accident of the Korean ship, statements can be found that the Soviet pilot did not understand that he was facing a civilian aircraft. Allegedly it was already dark and the Boeing 747 looked like an RC-135. In fact, they are no more alike than any two large airplanes. In an interview with the New York Times in 1996, Osipovich rejected all versions related to identification error:
“I saw two rows of windows and realized it was a Boeing. I knew it was a civilian aircraft. But it meant nothing to me. “Civilian model aircraft can be easily converted to military use,” he said.
In 2003, Osipovich told Komsomolskaya Pravda the story in more detail and also refused to admit that there were people on board. “He went far. And as I approached, I saw two rows of portholes lit. I didn’t see anyone in the cabin. You can’t see much from 300 meters. Then we corrected the record of our radio exchange with the ground. They acted as if I had informed them that the “Blinker” was not lit. Convincing the world that we do not know that the aircraft is civilian (on a civilian aircraft the signal lights are always on – socialbites.ca). Although I honestly reported that the flasher was on. So they understand that this is a civilian. I believe only the crew were on the crashed plane. And of course the scouts,” he said. According to the pilot, the real Korean ship was shot down by the Americans “to declare the USSR an evil empire.”
At the same time, according to the published text of the radio communication, those who ordered the overthrow considered this as a discovery.
“It is necessary to find out whether this is some kind of civilian aircraft or God knows what,” said General Valery Kamensky, the commander of the air defense of the Far Eastern Military District, 12 minutes before the launch of the missiles.
Which civilian? It flew over Kamchatka! From the other side of the ocean, unidentified! “If it crosses the state border, I will give the order to attack,” said General Anatoly Kornukov, the commander of the Sokol airbase, where the Su-15 took off.
CIA provocation?
The version of the event described by Osipovich is more popular in another version – allegedly, the CIA deliberately sent a passenger plane into the airspace of the USSR to provoke and identify air defense objects. There are many arguments against this. First of all, this is refuted by recordings of Boeing pilots’ conversations from “black boxes”. Half an hour before the crash, the crew can be heard casually discussing currency exchange at the airport and the hard work of intercontinental flights. The sound of the explosion surprised the pilots, and they apparently did not realize that they were being attacked – at least they did not report it by radio to the controller. »[Говорит] On Korean Air 007… we are experiencing a rapid decompression, we are descending to zero thousand,” they managed to convey.
It can be assumed that the CIA somehow messed up the navigation equipment and used the pilots in the dark. However, the crew is responsible for checking the correct functioning of the instruments and navigation system, and this was not done out of negligence or incompetence. In other words, the American intelligence officers had to disrupt the planes one by one until they found enough careless pilots to achieve their goal.
In addition, the provocation involving a plane belonging to South Korea, an ally of the USA, is full of international scandal.
On Flight KE007, 62 US citizens, including Congressman Larry McDonald, died.
Finally, historians are familiar with the case when the CIA actually planned a provocation involving a civilian aircraft. In 1962, the US government was working on plans for a military intervention in Cuba with the aim of overthrowing the Fidel Castro regime.
As follows declassified To justify this, they planned to stage a false flag operation: Cubans allegedly shot down a passenger plane, according to the documents. To do this, before the provocation, they planned to turn the victim aircraft into a drone – not to mention their own congressmen, not even mention of the use of mercenaries from third world countries.
However, President John F. Kennedy also rejected this plan and fired General Lyman Lemnitzer, who suggested it.
Presumably, flight KE007 fell victim to the negligence of the pilots and the suspicion of the Soviet air defense command, sharpened to protect the borders at all costs.