Dangerous Cold War Events: Seymour Hersh on Korean Air Lines Flight 007 - Interview (1986)

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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. On September 1, 1983, the airliner serving the flight was shot down by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor near Moneron Island, west of Sakhalin Island, in the Sea of Japan. The interceptor's pilot was Major Gennadi Osipovich. All 269 passengers and crew aboard were killed, including Lawrence McDonald, a sitting member of the United States Congress. The aircraft was en route from Anchorage to Seoul when it flew through prohibited Soviet airspace around the time of a U.S. reconnaissance mission. The Soviet Union initially denied knowledge of the incident, but later admitted the shootdown, claiming that the aircraft was on a spy mission. The Politburo 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 United States accused the Soviet Union of obstructing search and rescue operations. The Soviet military suppressed evidence sought by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) investigation, notably the flight data recorders, which were eventually released eight years later after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The incident was one of the tensest 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 KAL 007 flight 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 Alaska. The interface of the autopilot used on airliners was redesigned to make it more ergonomic. The song "Murder In The Skies" on UK/Irish blues-rock guitarist Gary Moore's 1984 album Victims Of The Future was a protest against the shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007. Lee Greenwood has stated that he wrote the song "God Bless the USA" in response to his feelings about the shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007. "The song just about wrote itself," Greenwood said in the book God Bless the USA (by Greenwood and Gwen McLin). "The words seemed to flow naturally from the music, and came out with total honesty. They were an expression of my feelings of pride. To me, America seemed just like a rookery, a place where we have a chance to grow, unmolested and free."[143] Two television movies were produced about the incident; both films were produced before the fall of the Soviet Union allowed access to archives: Shootdown (1988), starring Angela Lansbury, John Cullum, and Kyle Secor, was based on the book of the same title by R.W. Johnson, about the efforts of Nan Moore (Lansbury), the mother of a passenger, to get answers from the US and Russian governments. The British Granada Television documentary drama Coded Hostile, screened on September 7, 1989, detailed the US military and governmental investigation, highlighting the likely confusion of Flight 007 with the USAF RC-135 in the context of routine US SIGINT/COMINT missions in the area. Written by Brian Phelan and directed by David Darlow, it starred Michael Murphy, Michael Moriarty, and Chris Sarandon. It was screened by HBO in the United States under the title Tailspin -- Behind the Korean Airliner Tragedy on August 20, 1989. An updated version of Coded Hostile was screened in the UK on August 31, 1993, incorporating details of the 1992 UN investigation. The Discovery Channel documentary series Unsolved History featured this incident. The Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel's documentary series Mayday featured this incident. Russian documentary movie (2011) by Denis Shulepov Passenger-Reconnaissance Flight 007 (Reis 007. Passajirsky razvedyvatelny) Russian documentary investigation (2011) by Andrey Lazarev Shady Incident. Tragedy of the Flight 007, NTV (Temnoye delo. Tragediya reisa 007) The Sri Lankan singer Anton Jones sang about the incident in his song, "Koriyan Guwan Yanaya" (Korean airplane) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007