Korean Air Lines Flight 007 alternative theories concerns the various theories put forward regarding the shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007. The aircraft was en route from New York City via Anchorage to Seoul on September 1, 1983, when it strayed into prohibited Soviet airspace and was shot down by Soviet fighter jets.
Flight 007 has been the subject of ongoing controversy and has spawned a number of conspiracy theories.Knight, p. 381 Many of these are based on the suppression of evidence such as the flight data recorders, unexplained details such as the role of a United States Air Force (USAF) RC-135 surveillance aircraft,Schultz, p. 367Johnson, p. 175 or merely Cold War disinformation and propaganda.Pry, p. 31Pearson, p.17Young, p. 137 Some commentators also felt that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) report into the incident failed to address key points adequately, such as the reason for the aircraft's deviation.Daniloff, p. 304Johnson, pp. 230–237 The release of flight data recorder evidence by the Russian Federation in 1993, ten years after the event, seriously challenged many of these theories. Some alternative interpretations focus on evidential questions largely independent of political considerations.
One of the first theories was that Space Shuttle Challenger and a satellite were monitoring the airliner's progress over Soviet territory. Defence Attaché, which printed this claim, was sued by Korean Air Lines and forced to pay damages and print an apology.Time, December 3, 1984
Flight crew awareness of deviation The reasons put forward for the aircraft's deviation range from a lack of situational awareness by the pilots (ICAO), to a planned and intentional deviation (Pearson), to an Inertial Navigation system (INS) programming error by 10 degrees of longitude during the inputting of the ramp starting position by the crew.Hersh pp. 199–213, the "Harold Ewing (H/E) scenario," which ICAO studied in great detail All accounts note that the pilots had several sources of information that could have alerted them to their increasing deviation from their planned route.Pearson, pp. 38–39Hersh, pp. 199–213 The "Harold Ewing" (H/E) scenario additionally suggests the flight's first officer did know they were flying away from the planned course, but the airline's culture discouraged anyone from questioning the captain's conduct of the flight, so he remained silent.
The theory that the INS system was set incorrectly gains considerable credibility if the following are considered: Although there are three independent inertial platforms, when in the ramp position, the operator only inputs one initial position in order for the platform to "erect". This would have been done by the flight engineer alone, before the other crew members arrive. In order to erect properly (that is, enter gyro-compassing mode), each platform relies on the correct latitude, but not the longitude. Therefore, if the longitude was incorrectly set, all three platforms would seem to erect normally, but with a position some 10 degrees in error. Once airborne, an incorrect aircraft system position (indicating higher latitudes a small amount) would immediately direct all the flight navigational displays to fly the aircraft to what it thinks is the correct track to the first way point. Once on the wrong track, all would appear normal, HSIs included. This would even be true if there were pictorial navigational displays, similar to modern aircraft.
The deviated track can be compared with the required track. As the aircraft moves south, the lines of longitude expand and the track deviation gets greater. That is the initial 10 degree error that was sent to the INS gets wider.
The horizontal situation indicator (HSI): Pearson contends that the HSI's needle could have alerted the pilots of their course deviation.KAL 007 Cover-Up. David Pearson, Summit Books, N.Y., Pg. 277, point 10 He postulates that the needle of each pilot's HSI, capable of showing deviation only up to , should have been "pegged" all the way to the side. The pilots, thus, could in theory have known that they were at least off course.An aircraft HSI generally has an image of a plane directly above the Horizontal Situation Indicator's needle when the aircraft is on course. A needle pointing to the left or to the right of the image would indicate that the plane is deviated left or right of the course. KAL 007's HSI's needle should have been pegged all the way to the right (North). The ICAO expanded on the HSI's capability of showing course deviation. Though the HSI was primarily designed to show the aircraft's situation with regard to the horizon, the 747's HSI contained an indicator to register deviation from plotted course. "Indications [of being on course] available to the crew would have been a reducing or zero track bar displacement with the HSI display set to the INS and a similar reducing or zero cross track error on the CDUs [consoles]. There would have been a similar effect with the VOR track displacement..."—ICAO report 1993, p. 42, sect. 2.4.4.
Despite this, at 1349 UTC, the pilots were reporting that they were on course ("007, Bethel at forty niner.")Pearson, p. 40 Fifty minutes after takeoff, military radar at King Salmon, Alaska acquired KAL 007 at more than off course. The deviation exceeded the expected accuracy of the INS ( an hour) by a factor of five.Pearson, pp. 40
Difficulties in making required reports: Pilot and copilot could also have been aware of the aircraft's serious deviation because now, much more than off course, KAL 007 was too far off course for the pilots to make their required Very High Frequency (VHF) radio reports, and had to relay these reports via KAL Flight 015, just minutes behind and on course (KAL 007, increasingly off course, relied on KAL 015 three times to relay its reports to Anchorage Air Traffic Control). By being forced to rely on KAL 015 to relay messages, KAL 007 should have (by definition) understood that they were well off course.KAL 007: Cover-Up, David Pearson, Summit Books, 1987, pg. 277, point 8.
At one point in this section of its flight, (1443 UTC) KAL 007 put a call through a navigational "hookup", the International Flight Service Station on HF. Flight 007, now too distant to speak directly with Anchorage controller through VHF, was transmitting its message using HF. At another point of this section of the flight, at waypoint NABIE, KAL 007 was too far north to make radio contact with the VHF air traffic control relay station on St. Paul Island. KAL 015 relayed for KAL 007. The message was a change in the estimated time of arrival (ETA) for the next waypoint called NEEVA, delaying by four minutes the ETA that KAL 015 had previously relayed on behalf of KAL 007. Since a revised ETA could only be calculated by means of readout information presented by KAL 007's Inertial Navigation Systems Control Display unit, Pearson asserts that pilot and copilot were once again presented with the opportunity of verifying their position and becoming aware of their enormous deviation.KAL 007:the cover-up, David Pearson, Summit, New York, pg. 46
Contrary wind conditions of KAL 007 and KAL 015: KAL 015 had departed about 15 minutes behind KAL 007. About 23 minutes before the tragedy, the two aircraft compared the times that they expected to reach waypoint NOKKA, at which point it became apparent that KAL 015 would reach it only four minutes behind KAL 007. KAL 015 reported experiencing strong tailwinds, while KAL 007 was experiencing a headwind. The paradox of the different flying conditions experienced by two aircraft supposedly flying so close together was discussed in the cabin of KAL 007, but the crew failed to draw any conclusions from it.Kleiner, p. 198
Weather radar: There was one last aid to warn the crew. Displayed in consoles at the knees of both pilot and copilot, the plane's weather radarKAL 007's two Bendix RDR-IF radars had a maximum range of with a 180° scan capability. ICAO 1983, p. 14, section 1.6.4.1 could have alerted them, both over Kamchatka and later over Sakhalin, to the fact that they were no longer flying over water, as they should have been.ICAO '93, pg. 45,2.9.1 Weather radar has two modes—ground mapping (when it would be possible to look down and see water or land masses as well as the contours of the coast lines) and weather surveillance mode for thunderstorm detection.ICAO '93, pg. 45, 2.9.1. In ground mapping mode, KAL 007 had only to make sure that the land mass of Kamchatka and the island string of the Kurile chain would remain to the right. That night, KAL 007's weather radar was probably not in land mapping mode, for the weather was inclement.ICAO 1983, section 1.7.1., p. 9. The ICAO's meteorological analysis concluded that "there was extensive coverage of low, medium, and high level clouds over southern Kamchatka associated with an active cold front"." ICAO's analysis of KAL 007's weather radar functioning would state, "it was concluded that the radar was not functioning properly or that the ground mapping capability was not used".ICAO 1983, p. 45. Section 2.9.1."
According to the ICAO, an indicator of pilot unawareness of the deviation from route of their flight was the bantering and casual cockpit conversation at the times that awareness of deviation into hostile airspace would have increased tension and have precluded this. (See Korean Air Lines Flight 007 transcripts.)
Planned spy mission theory
In 1994, Robert W. Allardyce and James Gollin wrote Desired Track: The Tragic Flight of KAL Flight 007, supporting the spy mission theory. In 2007, they reiterated their position in a series of articles in Airways Magazine, arguing that the investigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization was a cover-up of a "carefully planned ferret mission".Allardyce & Gollin, 2007 Furthermore, they suggested that the NSA had implemented Electronic Counter Measures to cover for the mission and that the flight recorder tapes had been planted for the Soviet recovery effort to find.Allardyce & Gollin, October 2007, pp 52–56.
Planned spy mission theories point out the incongruency of a civilian passenger liner going accidentally astray and unnoticed precisely in one of the most militarily sensitive and well-observed areas in the Cold War. They point out that there were powerful land and sea radar arrays that could have tracked KAL 007 as it crossed through the NORAD prohibited-to-civilian flight zone and approached and entered Soviet territory. These were: COBRA JUDY aboard the missile range instrumentation ship USNS Observation Island, then off the coast of Kamchatka; Shemya Island's COBRA DANE line of sight radar which was capable of tracking an aircraft at up to a altitude through an area covering (the curvature of the Earth being its limiting factor); Shemya Island's COBRA TALON, an over-the-horizon radar array with a range from to . COBRA TALON operated by bouncing its emissions off the ionosphere (deflection) to the other side of the line of sight horizon, thus acquiring its targets.
These radar arrays had capability for both surveillance and tracking. Whether this capability was actually used in the case of Flight 007 is currently unknown. In addition, the United States Air Force radar stations at Cape Newenham and Cape Romanzoff, two of twelve stations comprising the United States Alaskan Distant Early Warning/Aircraft Control and Warning (DEW/ACW) System, had the capability to track all aircraft heading toward the Russian Buffer Zone. Well within range of these radar sites, KAL 007 had veered directly toward Kamchatka. This theory postulates that the CIA put out disinformation about the aircraft landing at Sakhalin after their mission failed in order to buy time to construct a more credible story.The American TV picture Shootdown
Theory of intentional deviation by pilots