I worked briefly on Cobra Ball which had my company’s hardware on board. Naturally, I took a great interest as we knew (as I recall) what had happened long before it hit the press. My recall may be faulty, but I remembered the chase plane(s?) was/were originally directed for too long in the wrong direction. As I recalled it, they were turned around and went hot (presumably afterburner.) Only one fighter was close enough to take the shot and my memory says that he was behind and below and could not see the strobes. KAL was hit as it left Soviet airspace. As I recall, the Soviets tried out several excuses, including that the pilot had acted alone. Then Reagan released the audio of the relayed conversation proving the pilot had received instructions relayed from Moscow to take the shot. (Perhaps by that time he was in visual range?)My recollection is that the pilot, who was being directed from the ground, was low on fuel.
In any case, everything I know is from my memory and I was never directly involved.
I had numerous nightmares about what happened on that plane. We calculated the time to the ground. It’s been a long time, but my recollection was five minutes or so.
The truly crazy thing is the Soviets thought Cobra Ball might be taking photo recognizance pictures. Both sides had satellites like Looking Glass that could photograph a license plate. Why on Earth would the US risk an over flight by a 707? This shoot down was caused by a premier still thinking of the world as it was in 1945.
I do not believe that the Soviet command structure would have issued a shoot order if they actually thought it was a civilian airliner. But those are paranoid people and the times were really different. To many, the cold war sometimes got hot enough to kill.
Yeah. . I hear ya. . .memory gets a little iffy when we, ahem, get around my age. . .that is why gawd made the internet and youtube.