I don't think that any one
deceived the Magnetic Compass. Once the Inertial Navigation System failed to capture the autopilot, KAL 007 continued on its 246 degrees deviated track into Soviet territory. Just going by the evidence at hand, it is difficult to posit that the Russians shot down KAL 007 in order to get Larry McDonald (though I can't rule that out), but once having rescued the passengers and the crew and finding out just who they had in their hands, they could not release the rest of the people and not release McDonald - which they had no intention of doing! For the whereabouts of the passengers and crew after they had been rescued and imprisoned - up through the early 90's - see newly posted
FAQ 10 of the International Committee for the Rescue of KAL 007 Survivors.
OK, this is BS.
The Russians would have NO incentive to hold these people (one of them MIGHT escape, after all) for one nanosecond. Assuming the aircraft crashed on land, anyone alive at the crash site would have been dead before dawn.