Korean Airlines flight 007 was shot down by the then Soviet Union in 1983.

I remember reading sometime in the late 80s that there were rumors about possible survivors that were being kept on an isolated island.

Soviets claimed self-defense, and claimed that the KAL flight was a spy plane.

 

Yes Mingster, I remember.

At the time the KAL was shot down I was only in grade school Korea, and the our reactions to the tragic event was similar to what Americans experienced during the Sept. 11th Terrorism

I haven't heard anything about the possible survivors kept on a remote island.
As far as I know there were no survivors and almost 300 ppl got killed

 

I remember. That was a low point for the Soviet Union. Good riddance.

 

I did some research on the shootdown for a paper in college. Very tragic indeed. What was interesting were some of the facts regarding the pilot's background, the maneuvers he executed right before being shot down, and the vicinity of US "listening" planes and ships in the area. One potential scenario is that the plane was being used to "light up" the soviet radar stations so the listening elements could map them.

I had not heard about any survivors. Sounds like an urban legend to me.

 

There were RC135s up of the peninsula that day flying race track patterns, for sure everyone used to tickle the USSR to get good SIGINT/COMINT but I doubt that using civil airliners as bait was really necessary. Who knows though, maybe something will be declassified in time but I'm not holding my breath.

 

i remember very well. my friend lost her father, mother and grandmother on that flight.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by DaveZ
[B]I did some research on the shootdown for a paper in college. Very tragic indeed. What was interesting were some of the facts regarding the pilot's background, the maneuvers he executed right before being shot down, and the vicinity of US "listening" planes and ships in the area. One potential scenario is that the plane was being used to "light up" the soviet radar stations so the listening elements could map them.



I read something about this too years ago. It would be incredibly tragic if this was the case

 

Gary Moore wrote a song about it called "Murder in the Skies" which was on the album called Victims of the Future. (1984)

 

Yes that was really tragic and unforgiveable. And does anyone remember when another country shot down an Iranian airliner in the Persian Gulf? That one definitely wasn't spying - it was on its normal flight path and had a civilian transponder.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by naishou
[B]Yes that was really tragic and unforgiveable.