Korean Air Lines Flight 902

Korean Air Lines Flight 902

Artist's conception of KAL 902 flanked by Soviet Su-15s
Occurrence summary
Date	April 20, 1978
Type	Airliner shoot down
Site	near Loukhi, Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union
Passengers	97
Crew	12
Fatalities	2
Survivors	107
Aircraft type	Boeing 707-321B
Operator	Korean Air Lines
Tail number	HL7429
Flight origin	Charles de Gaulle International Airport Paris, France
Last stopover	Scheduled to stop at Anchorage International Airport Anchorage, Alaska, United States
Destination	Gimpo International Airport Seoul, South Korea

Korean Air Lines Flight 902 (KAL902, KE902) was the flight number of a civilian airliner that was shot down April 20, 1978, near Murmansk, USSR, after it violated Soviet airspace and allegedly failed to respond to Soviet interceptors. Tapes released by Rovaniemi Area Control Centre show that the pilots of KAL902 transmitted their call sign three times immediately prior to the shootdown.^[1] Two passengers were killed when Soviet aircraft opened fire on the aircraft. 107 passengers and crew survived after the plane made an emergency landing on a frozen lake.

Contents 1 History of the flight 2 See also 3 Notes 4 References 5 External links

History of the flight

The Boeing 707 aircraft (registration HL7429), piloted by Kim Chang Ky, left Paris, France on a course to Anchorage, Alaska, United States where it would refuel and proceed to Seoul, South Korea. The plane initially flew north past Great Britain, Iceland, Greenland, and the Canadian Forces Station Alert, located on Ellesmere Island 400 miles (640 km) from the North Pole.^[2] It then changed its course, flying southeast; not toward Anchorage located at , but in the opposite direction toward Murmansk at . The aircraft was not fitted with an inertial navigation system,^{[Notes 1]} 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 led it to fly southeast over the Svalbard archipelago and the Barents Sea, past northern Scandinavia into Soviet airspace. Soviet Sukhoi Su-15 'Flagon' fighters were scrambled after the plane, which was incorrectly identified as a United States Air Force reconnaissance RC-135.^{[Notes 2]}

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.^[2] 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 to land by another Su-15TM (piloted by Anatoly Kerefov) on the frozen Korpijärvi Lake ,^[3] 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of nearest railway station Loukhi and 140 kilometres (87 mi) from the Finnish border. The 107 survivors were rescued by Soviet 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 South Korea for $100,000 in caretaking expenses. The passengers were flown with a Pan Am Boeing 727 from Murmansk to Helsinki, Finland from where another Korean Air Boeing 707 took them to Seoul.

The incident was a major embarrassment to the Soviet air defense forces because the jetliner had penetrated Soviet territory before interception. This led to a major shakeup of the defense force command, and contributed to the shooting down of Korean Air 007 by the Soviets in 1983.^[4][5]

Korean Air continues to use Flight 902 on its Paris-Seoul route but it is now a nonstop route. The flight from Paris now departs from Charles de Gaulle instead of Orly and arrives in Seoul at Incheon Airport instead of Gimpo.

See also

• List of airliner shootdown incidents
• Lists of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
• Air safety
• Korean Air Lines Flight 007, shot down under similar circumstances in 1983

Notes

References

External links

• Report on Aviation Safety Network
• Black-and-white photographies of the KAL B-707 wreckage
• KAL 902 fails to appear on time, in Russian (English translation)

Cold War Participants and notable figures ANZUS NATO Non-Aligned Movement SEATO Warsaw Pact 1940s Yalta Conference Operation Unthinkable Potsdam Conference Gouzenko Affair War in Vietnam (1945–1946) Iran crisis of 1946 Greek Civil War Corfu Channel Incident Restatement of Policy on Germany First Indochina War Truman Doctrine Asian Relations Conference Marshall Plan Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 Tito–Stalin split Berlin Blockade Western betrayal Iron Curtain Eastern Bloc Chinese Civil War (Second round) 1950s Korean War 1953 Iranian coup d'état Uprising of 1953 in East Germany 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état Partition of Vietnam First Taiwan Strait Crisis Geneva Summit (1955) Poznań 1956 protests Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Suez Crisis Sputnik crisis Second Taiwan Strait Crisis Cuban Revolution Kitchen Debate Asian–African Conference Bricker Amendment McCarthyism Operation Gladio Hallstein Doctrine 1960s Congo Crisis Sino–Soviet split 1960 U-2 incident Bay of Pigs Invasion Berlin Wall Cuban Missile Crisis Vietnam War 1964 Brazilian coup d'état United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1965–1966) South African Border War Transition to the New Order Domino theory ASEAN Declaration Laotian Civil War Greek military junta of 1967–1974 Six-Day War War of Attrition Cultural Revolution Sino-Indian War Prague Spring Goulash Communism Sino–Soviet border conflict 1970s Détente Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Black September in Jordan Cambodian Civil War Realpolitik Ping Pong Diplomacy Four Power Agreement on Berlin 1972 Nixon visit to China 1973 Chilean coup d'état Yom Kippur War Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Rhodesian Bush War Angolan Civil War Mozambican Civil War Ogaden War Sino-Albanian split Cambodian–Vietnamese War Sino-Vietnamese War Iranian Revolution Operation Condor Bangladesh Liberation War Korean Air Lines Flight 902 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics boycotts Solidarity Soviet reaction Contras Central American crisis RYAN Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Able Archer 83 Star Wars Invasion of Grenada People Power Revolution Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 United States invasion of Panama Fall of the Berlin Wall Revolutions of 1989 Glasnost Perestroika 1990s Democratic Revolution in Mongolia Breakup of Yugoslavia Dissolution of the Soviet Union Dissolution of Czechoslovakia Foreign policy Truman Doctrine Marshall Plan Containment Eisenhower Doctrine Domino theory Kennedy Doctrine Peaceful coexistence Ostpolitik Johnson Doctrine Brezhnev Doctrine Nixon Doctrine Ulbricht Doctrine Carter Doctrine Reagan Doctrine Rollback Ideologies Capitalism Chicago school Keynesianism Monetarism Neoclassical economics Supply-side economics Thatcherism Reaganomics Communism Marxism–Leninism Castroism Eurocommunism Guevarism Juche Left communism Maoism Stalinism Titoism Trotskyism Liberal democracy Social democracy Organizations ASEAN CIA Comecon EEC KGB MI6 Stasi Propaganda Active measures Izvestia Pravda Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Red Scare TASS Voice of America Voice of Russia Races Arms race Nuclear arms race Space Race See also Brinkmanship NATO–Russia relations Soviet and Russian espionage in U.S. Soviet Union–United States relations US–Soviet summits Category Portal Timeline

← 1977 Aviation accidents and incidents in 1978 (1978) 1979 →     Jan 01  Air India Flight 855 Jan 18  Eastern Airlines Flight 274 Feb 11  Pacific Western Airlines Flight 314 Mar 16  Balkan Bulgarian Tu-134 crash Apr 20  Korean Air Lines Flight 902 May 08  National Airlines Flight 193 Jun 26  Air Canada Flight 189 Aug 30  LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijacking Sep 03  Air Rhodesia Flight 825 Sep 25  PSA Flight 182 Sep 30  Finnair Flight 405 Nov 15  Icelandic Airlines Flight LL 001 Dec 21  TWA Flight 541 Dec 23  Alitalia Flight 4128 Dec 28  United Airlines Flight 173 Incidents resulting in at least 50 deaths shown in italics     Deadliest incident shown in bold smallcaps