17. Korean Air Lines Flight 007, 1983
KAL 007 was a scheduled flight from New York’s JFK International Airport to Gimpo International Airport in Seoul, South Korea, with a stopover in Anchorage, Alaska. On September 1, 1983, the aircraft performing the flight, a Boeing 747, crashed into the sea off the Sakhalin Peninsula, ending all 269 passengers and crew aboard, including Lawrence McDonald, a US Representative from Georgia. The crash took place at a time when tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were at a height not seen since the early 1960s. US Naval fleet exercises had recently conducted operations in which US naval aircraft overflew Soviet military installations in the region, including in the Kuril Islands. At the time of the crash, the US Air Force was operating airborne reconnaissance aircraft to monitor a planned Soviet missile exercise, revealed to the Americans by a Soviet defector.
After KAL 007 departed Anchorage for its flight to Seoul, it began to deviate from its planned course, drifting closer to Soviet airspace with each mile it traveled. According to the Soviets, the airliner entered Soviet airspace near Kamchatka and four MiG fighters were sent to intercept it and investigate. KAL 007 crossed Kamchatka and left Soviet airspace without being intercepted. It then crossed the Sea of Okhotsk and again approached Soviet airspace near Sakhalin. Over Sakhalin, Soviet fighters visually sighted KAL 007 and fired warning shots, which the pilot either didn’t see or ignored. Instead, the airliner began to climb to a higher altitude, under the direction of air traffic controllers in Tokyo. The Soviets tracking the aircraft from the ground interpreted the climb as an evasive maneuver from an unidentified aircraft, and ordered it be shot down.
