Thread: Korean Airlines Flight 007 survivors and other alleged conspiracies

Russia has actually been relatively honest about this kind of stuff from the 1990s and onwards. At least towards my country, the USSR was not very dishonest or plotting, and when ex Soviet military people were able to speak off the record without any risk of reprimands, they confirmed the officia USSR version of events, and digging around in archives that were opened up, again confirmed the USSRs version. Sweden had some issues with the USSR about a some missing people, submarines and a small plane that was shot down. Even though the assumption was always that the USSR was lying and covering things up, as it turned out,they had been telling the truth, more or less, including when it was not particularly flattering on them. Actually, our own polititicians and media had been MORE dishonest than the USSR, simply lying about what the military, and individuals had been up to, on Soviet territory.

I honestly think this is a fanciful story that probably doesn't have a lot of substance although undoubtedly dramatic and intriguing.

Any kids that had survived something like this would surely remember it and look into it as adults. Any surviving adults would surely have spoken up by now.

Originally Posted by Hanna

I honestly think [the "abducted survivors" claim] is a fanciful story that probably doesn't have a lot of substance although undoubtedly dramatic and intriguing.

I agree with you on this point, Hanna. I think the simple truth is that 269 people were killed as a result of accidental mis-identification, technological failure, and human error, all compounded by political paranoia and military over-zealousness -- similar to the tragic case of Iran Air 655 in 1988.

To answer your earlier question about the relevance of this in today's world, I would say that if you're interested in Soviet history, the KAL 007 tragedy was a highly significant event in the late Soviet period. And even if you believe, as I do, that this was essentially a terrible accident and that Reagan was totally wrong to spin it as "barbarism" by the "Evil Empire," the internal Soviet response in the aftermath of the accident (particularly the decision to engage in international deception about the black boxes) is also possibly revealing about the willful lack of transparency within the Soviet political system. And I admit that "lack of transparency" has been an issue in American policy, too -- but I would insist that it's much easier to be massively deceitful in a country with only one political party and complete state control of the media.

One other interesting thing I learned as a result of this thread: rather amazingly, KAL 007 was actually the SECOND South Korean airliner in less than a decade that was shot down by the Soviet "ВВС" (Военно-Воздушные Силы, "Air Force"), after blundering into USSR airspace as a result of navigational errors!!

In April 1978, KAL 902 was flying with 109 people on board from Paris to Seoul (via Anchorage) by a trans-polar route. When the flight was passing over the North Pole, the magnetic compasses failed, and the flight crew attempted to navigate by visual sightings of the sun. The result of this was that the plane made an almost 180° U-turn and entered Soviet airspace over Murmansk, east of northern Finland. As in the KAL 007 incident, the plane was initially suspected to be a US Air Force RC-135; Soviet military pilots in the air visually confirmed that it was a civilian plane, but were ordered by superiors on the ground to open fire.

But this incident ended much less tragically -- two passengers were killed by shrapnel from the Soviet missile strike, but the plane made a safe emergency landing, and the other 107 survived and were taken into custody. The passengers were released and flown to Finland after two days, while the civilian airline crew members were held a little longer (and forced to make a public "apology" for political purposes), but also released.

Since the plane was "embarrassingly far" into Soviet airspace before it was finally intercepted by fighter planes, some analysts think that this incident contributed to the over-zealous response of the Soviet Air Force in the KAL 007 incident less than six years later.

P.S. I was not even 7 years old when the KAL 902 incident took place, which is probably why I don't recall ever hearing about it until now -- I certainly remember the news reports about KAL 007, by which time I was almost 12 and in junior-high school.

P.P.S. On ru.wikipedia, the articles about the shootdowns are called Инцидент с южнокорейским Боингом [1978] and Инцидент с южнокорейским Боингом [1983] ("Incident with a South Korean Boeing, 1978/1983") as though they were talking about two movies with the same title!

Originally Posted by Hanna

At least towards my country, the USSR was not very dishonest or plotting

[Edited by author because of unnecessary rudeness: The only relevant thing I said was that Sweden's small population (and corresponding lack of military power) gave the USSR less incentive to plot against Sweden. -- Th.M.]

Hanna, if you saw my post, I apologize for being so impolite. I was rattled by Marcus's "empty spy plane" claim, which I think was beyond rational defense, but I should not have taken out my frustration on you, just because you were commenting in the same thread.