KAL007 - What Really Happened

[boleropilot]

Just wondering if anyone else has read the book Incident at Sakhalin by Michel Brun, where he conducts an incredible investigation of the shootdown of Korean Air Flight KAL007 on 1st September 1983.  My original information was gained from the book Shootdown - The Verdict on KAL007, by R W Johnson (1986).  Michel Bruns' book was written in 1995, and a huge amount of information has been discovered (or released by governments) during the decade between these two books.

 

To give you an idea of what actually happened at the time this 'incident' occurred, Michel Brun states on the cover of his book the following:

 

"The book establishes that as the Korean Boeing 747 approached the Russian island of Sakhalin, so too did a number of U.S. military and reconnaissance aircraft in an ill-conceived intelligence and provocation operation that turned into a two-hour battle in which 30 or more U.S. Air Force and Navy personnel were killed and ten or more U.S. aircraft were shot down." 

 

This is not a beat-up story by some journalist trying to make a name for himself, nor is it some kind of conspiracy theorist garbage.  The information in Bruns' book appears to be incredibly well detailed and investigated, with much of the detective work conducted by him personally.  The fact that wreckage from the battle included parts that were reliably identified as coming from aircraft such as an F-111 and an SR71 gives you some idea of the incredible scale of what really happened on that night.

 

I am about half way through the book and at this stage I have not read the final information on either USA or USSR losses - I'll keep you posted.

 

BP

 

 

[Thruster88]

Um, a lot of people would have noticed if an SR71 had gone missing,  only 32 were built. Anyhow looking forward to the rest of the story. 

 

 

[IBob]

Boleropilot, I spent 3 months on Paramushir (one of the Kuril islands off the Kamchatka Peninsula) in the mid '80s. It has a high plateau at the northern end (unusual in a volcanic archipelago) with an airstrip and a great deal of listening gear. It was a no go zone.

 

One of the theories at the time was that the KAL007 incursion was deliberate, intended to cause Russia to light up all it's surveillance gear so that the US could get a look at it.

 

We asked the Russians on the island what had happened: they were the first to say that there was no way for them to know, due to the amount of state propaganda. But what they were told at the time was that a large number of foreign aircraft were shot down on that day, one of them being a civilian airliner.

 

As an aside: looking at Google Earth, the Paramushir plateau now seems to be deserted. But you can still see where the airstrips and strategically distributed buildings were...

 

 

[IBob]

For those who enjoy aerial pics and puzzles as I do:

 

Paramushir plateau approx: 50'42"06 N 156'07"30 E

 

 

[boleropilot]

g'day guys, thanks for the responses..

 

page 66

 

"the piece of debris was too light to be stainless steel and its workmanship was very advanced.  It looked like part of the leading edge of a sharply swept-back wing and appeared to be made of titanium.  I had been able to obtain a fragment in Wakkanai; and a little later in Tokyo I had it analyzed.  The metal was an alloy, 89 percent titanium.  This triangular piece of high-tech aviation debris could, indeed, been the forward point of a wing from an SR-71"

 

the complete breakdown of materials are as follows:  titanium 88.96%, aluminium 5.70%, molybdenum 4.12%, silicon 0.73%, tin 0.39%, vanadium 0.11%.  I agree that with "normal" aircraft any loss would be common knowledge, but the SR-71 "type" of aircraft had 3 variants totalling 50 aircraft - Thruster88 is spot on about the 32 SR-71 variants.  As far as accidents/losses are concerned, there were a LOT in the early years, starting in 1967.  The last loss is listed on the SR-71 website is listed as occurring in 1989, so they were definitely still flying in 1983 when the air battle occurred.  One thing we must always keep in mind is that we really have no idea what the U.S. was flying at the time, or where they ended up.

 

also, page 138

 

"if, however, it did not come from an SR-71, it came from a similar high performance U.S. military or intelligence aircraft"

 

at the moment the U.S. losses as detailed in the book are (perhaps): 1 or 2 RC-135, 1 or 2 F-111, and 1 "who knows" but obviously a very high tech aircraft....

 

watch this space !

 

BP

 

 

[onetrack]

It's drawing a long bow to try and extrapolate a fragment of aircraft wreckage to a particular aircraft, purely by the metal analysis.

 

The metal composition he has described is more than likely identical to numerous high-strength components used in a B747.

 

If 30 USAAF personnel were lost in one action, the U.S. Govt would find it impossible to hide. Where are the 30 families who have been told their sons were MIA in some unknown action?

 

It's not likely all of their families would meekly accept the loss of a son without making enquiries about the reasons and circumstances behind the family loss.

 

And 10 USAAF aircraft missing in one enemy territory excursion? There would be many questions being asked for a long time, and the truth would eventually come out.

 

 

[IBob]

Yep. And when you finish that, read Christopher Robbins - Air America, if you haven't already.

 

Not to be confused with the movie, which shows just one tiny slice of the entire picture................

 

 

[Yenn]

If I remember correctly, the airliner took on extra fuel and also offloaded freight before its last leg. there was also an NDB which was inoperative and they would normally have used it for navigation.

 

The pilot had been one of the Korean air forces top pilots, before joining the airline.

 

It was most likely that the airliner was used to track off its correct flight path to get the Russian radars working, so that the yanks could work out what frequencies they were on.

 

 

[willedoo]

Not much was known about the so called 'Secret War' until the 90's. In this article, it's claimed 126 American airmen are still missing from spy missions over the USSR.

 

https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/secret-casualties-of-the-cold-war-180967122/

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

What an appalling statistic. The scale of US losses in spy missions is out of all proportion to the threat posed to their nation. The paranoid Americans covered up so much skullduggery, yet claimed to be so much better than the evil commies.

 

The only positive is the wonderful cooperation by a few dedicated men from both sides trying to bring some closure to the families of lost airmen. 

 

A related story: it was years after that war that we learned the US had about 900 of its aircraft shot down over North Vietnam. Pawns of the wealthy warmongers.

 

 

[turboplanner]

g'day guys, thanks for the responses..

 

page 66

 

"the piece of debris was too light to be stainless steel and its workmanship was very advanced.  It looked like part of the leading edge of a sharply swept-back wing and appeared to be made of titanium.  I had been able to obtain a fragment in Wakkanai; and a little later in Tokyo I had it analyzed.  The metal was an alloy, 89 percent titanium.  This triangular piece of high-tech aviation debris could, indeed, been the forward point of a wing from an SR-71"

 

the complete breakdown of materials are as follows:  titanium 88.96%, aluminium 5.70%, molybdenum 4.12%, silicon 0.73%, tin 0.39%, vanadium 0.11%.  I agree that with "normal" aircraft any loss would be common knowledge, but the SR-71 "type" of aircraft had 3 variants totalling 50 aircraft - Thruster88 is spot on about the 32 SR-71 variants.  As far as accidents/losses are concerned, there were a LOT in the early years, starting in 1967.  The last loss is listed on the SR-71 website is listed as occurring in 1989, so they were definitely still flying in 1983 when the air battle occurred.  One thing we must always keep in mind is that we really have no idea what the U.S. was flying at the time, or where they ended up.

 

also, page 138

 

"if, however, it did not come from an SR-71, it came from a similar high performance U.S. military or intelligence aircraft"

 

at the moment the U.S. losses as detailed in the book are (perhaps): 1 or 2 RC-135, 1 or 2 F-111, and 1 "who knows" but obviously a very high tech aircraft....

 

watch this space !

 

BP

 

CIA were flying the original Oxcart version, so not SR71 if they were involved.

 

 

[boleropilot]

thanks again for the replies, especially willedoos link to the airspace magazine article - I read every word...unbelievable

 

one of the new items read in the book described information about a "hole in the ground" near Sakhalin that was suspected to be the crash site of an RC-135.  It was claimed that Russian Generals themselves visited the scene and brought along with them a fuel truck - the truck was driven into the hole and the cocks opened, then they set fire to it.  Witnesses said that it burned for 8 hours, and after it finally died down, they bulldozed the whole thing to flat ground and told everyone present they would end up in Siberia if they breathed a word of it to anyone.

 

no wonder it's difficult to find out the truth about what happened to those airmen...

 

 

[boleropilot]

sorry, forget to mention a couple of other interesting facts:

 

the Korean Air Force and the U.S. Air Force have been big buddies ever since the Korean war - real close...

 

the pilots that flew KAL007 were not supposed to fly this trip - they were over hours flown and another crew had been tasked, but they showed up and said "this is our flight"

 

another Korean Air 747 flew the same route about 10 minutes away from KAL007 - during the flight they radioed false position reports for 007 so everyone thought they were on track

 

Korean Air had very strict rules about fuel aboard at takeoff - not one pound above what they needed was allowed - Captain Chun loaded an extra 10,000 lbs of fuel

 

and so on, and so on.....

 

 

[willedoo]

I find the whole Cold War period a fascinating part of history. Having grown up in the Cold War, we were conditioned to think our side was righteous and the other side evil. It wasn't until the demise of the Soviet Union, the advent of the internet, and the relative freeing up of information, that it became apparent we had been subject to just as much propaganda as those opposite. We were taught it was all black and white and now we know there was grey. And there still is a lot of grey.

 

 

[spacesailor]

When people give us information.

 

They end up in jail.

 

Julian Assange . merely let us know that the US  is as BAD. as the rest of the world.

 

spacesailor