Korean Air Lines Flight 007, also known as KAL 007 or KE007, was a Korean Air Lines civilian airliner shot down by Soviet jet interceptors on September 1, 1983 just west of Sakhalin island. 269 passengers and crew, including US congressman Lawrence McDonald, were aboard KAL 007; there were no survivors.
The Soviet Union stated it did not know the aircraft was civilian and suggested it had entered Soviet airspace as a deliberate provocation by the United States, the purpose being to test its military response capabilities, repeating the provocation of Korean Air Flight 902, also shot down by Soviet aircraft over the Kola Peninsula in 1978. The incident attracted a storm of protest from across the world, particularly from the United States.
Yea, those "storms of protest" have really been effective in dealing with other countries.
I was working at the Associated Press in NYC the day that happened. I tracked news from early in the morning when the plane was simply "missing" to the time Andropov admitted it had been shot down.
I remember not long after, Don Imus, tore out of his radio studio at WN...BC, took the Soviet flag down from Rockefeller Plaza, and started a campaign to get signatures of people as a form of petition against what happened. He filled up the flag with signatures and sent the flag and a scathing letter to Yuri Andropov. Interesting times, those were. The beginning of the end of Soviet communism.
Korean Air Lines Flight 007, also known as KAL 007 or KE007, was a Korean Air Lines civilian airliner shot down by Soviet jet interceptors on September 1, 1983 just west of Sakhalin island. 269 passengers and crew, including US congressman Lawrence McDonald, were aboard KAL 007; there were no survivors.
The Soviet Union stated it did not know the aircraft was civilian and suggested it had entered Soviet airspace as a deliberate provocation by the United States, the purpose being to test its military response capabilities, repeating the provocation of Korean Air Flight 902, also shot down by Soviet aircraft over the Kola Peninsula in 1978. The incident attracted a storm of protest from across the world, particularly from the United States.
A buddy of mine who used to be an Air Force Intel weenie told me that the Russians shot down KAL 007 because of wanting/needing to kill one of the passengers. He refuses to say anything else.
Read this for what really happened to KAL 007.
Russians know they're doing a cold war dance - kinda creepy.