Cold War Incident - KAL Flight 007 Shootdown (Sea of Japan)
From Month/Year
September / 1983
To Month/Year
October / 1983
Description USS Sterett CG 31 served as flagship of the U.S. Navy 's Task Force 71 in 1983. These ships were dispatched to conduct search and recovery operations in the immediate aftermath of the 1 Sept 1983 shoot down of Korean Air Lines flight 007 by interceptor fighters of the (then) Soviet Union, after the unarmed civilian airliner veered into Soviet airspace while en route from Anchorage, Alaska to Seoul, South Korea.
This horrific act resulted in the loss of all 269 passengers and crew - greatly heightening the Cold War tensions of the time. After steaming to the search area within international waters west of the USSR's Sakhalin Island where the aircraft was believed to have crashed, the ships of TF 71 found themselves engaged in eyeball-to-eyeball, close in, nautical manuevers with a parade of Soviet military and coastal patrol assets that had swarmed into the same area trying to reach the KAL 007 remains first. It soon became clear that many of the Soviet ships were deploying tactics aimed at hindering the search and recovery efforts of the US and its allies.
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (also known as KAL007 and KE007) was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska. On September 1, 1983, the South Korean airliner serving the flight was shot down by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor. It crashed in the sea near Moneron Island west of Sakhalin in the Sea of Japan. All 269 passengers and crew aboard were killed, including Larry McDonald, a Representative from Georgia in the United States House of Representatives. The aircraft was en route from Anchorage to Seoul when it flew through Soviet prohibited airspace around the time of a U.S. aerial reconnaissance mission. The Soviets found the wreckage under the sea on September 15, and found the in-flight recorders in October, but kept this information secret until 1993.
The Soviet Union initially denied knowledge of the incident, but later admitted shooting down the aircraft, claiming that it was on a MASINT spy mission. The Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union said it was a deliberate provocation by the United States to test the Soviet Union's military preparedness, or even to provoke a war. The White House accused the Soviet Union of obstructing search and rescue operations. The Soviet Armed Forces suppressed evidence sought by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) investigation, such as the flight data recorders, which were released eight years later after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The incident was one of the most tense moments of the Cold War and resulted in an escalation of anti-Soviet sentiment, particularly in the United States. The opposing points of view on the incident were never fully resolved; consequently, several groups continue to dispute official reports and offer alternative theories of the event. The subsequent release of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 transcripts and flight recorders by the Russian Federation has clarified some details.
As a result of the incident the United States altered tracking procedures for aircraft departing from Alaska. The interface of the autopilot used on airliners was redesigned to make it more ergonomic. In addition, the event was one of the most important single events that prompted the Reagan administration to allow worldwide access to the United States military satellite navigation system DNSS, which was classified at the time. Today this system is known as GPS.
