Korean Air Lines Flight 902
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 Artist's conception of KAL 902 flanked by Soviet Su-15s
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| Summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | April 20, 1978 |
| Type | Airliner shot down |
| Site | near Murmansk |
| Passengers | 97 |
| Crew | 12 |
| Fatalities | 2 |
| Survivors | 107 |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 707 |
| Operator | Korean Air Lines |
| Tail number | HL7429 |
| Flight origin | Paris, France |
| Last stopover | Scheduled to stop at Anchorage, Alaska, United States |
| Destination | Seoul, South Korea |
Korean Air Lines Flight 902 (KAL902, KE902) was the flight number of a civilian airliner shot down by Soviet fighters on April 20, 1978 near Murmansk, after it violated Soviet airspace and failed to respond to Soviet interceptors.[citation needed] Two passengers were killed in the incident. 107 passengers and crew survived after the plane made an emergency landing on a frozen lake.
The Boeing 707 aircraft (registration HL7429), piloted by Kim Chang Ky, left Paris, France on a course to Anchorage, Alaska, where it would refuel and proceed to Seoul, South Korea. The plane flew north past the Canadian Forces Station Alert, located 400 miles (640 km) from the North Pole.[1] It then changed its course, flying south; not toward Anchorage located at 149°53′W, but in the opposite direction toward Murmansk at 33°5′E. The aircraft was not fitted with an inertial navigation system and the pilots failed to note the position of the sun, almost 180 degrees off from where it should have been. According to the official Korean explanation, the pilots in their navigation calculations used the wrong sign of magnetic declination when converting between magnetic and true headings. This caused the plane to fly in an enormous right-turning arc, which eventually caused the aircraft to fly north from Great Britain towards Iceland, arcing around Scandinavia and towards the Barents Sea into Soviet airspace. Soviet Sukhoi Su-15 'Flagon' fighters were scrambled after the plane, which was identified as a military U.S. plane (RC-135, an aircraft that shares common ancestry with the 707, like many other U.S. military airplanes).
According to Soviet reports, the intruder repeatedly ignored commands to follow the interceptors. Su-15 pilot Capt. A. Bosov was ordered to shoot it down after trying to convince his superiors on the ground that the aircraft was not a military threat.[1] He fired a pair of R-60 missiles, one of which caused heavy damage to part of the left wing of the Boeing 707 and punctured the fuselage, causing rapid decompression, and killing two of the 97 passengers. After being hit, the airliner descended into cloud and was lost by the Su-15s. At 23:05, 40 minutes after the missile strike, it was finally forced by another SU-15TM (piloted by Anatoly Kerefov) to land on the frozen Korpijärvi Lake, 250 miles (400 km) south of Murmansk and 20 miles (32 km) from the Finland border. The 107 survivors were rescued by Russian helicopters.
The passengers were released after two days, while the crew were held for investigation and released after they made a formal apology. The Korean pilots acknowledged that they deliberately failed to obey the commands of the Soviet interceptors. The Soviet Union invoiced Korea for $100,000 in caretaking expenses. The passengers were flown with a Pan Am B727 from Murmansk to Helsinki, Finland from which another Korean Air B707 took them to Seoul.
