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KAL 007 -- Korean Air Disaster 1983

Intro

On the night of August 31/September 1 1983, a Korean Airlines 747 took off from Anchorage Alaska... what happened next?
20 hours later, George Shultz, (Secretary of State), said that the Russians shot it down! But...did they?

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Wreckage

The 747 is a big piece of machinery. Unless it was at the center of a nuclear explosion, there should be truck-loads of wreckage. But nine days later, a Japanese Minister of Something was puzzled that no wreckage had been recovered.
The so-called "crash site" is in international waters. No permission is required to search there. But no one will ever look, will they?
What does that tell you?
It tells me that
No plane crashed there!
See attached page for more detail about just what can be learned from dedicated investigation of aircraft wreckage.
Wreckage Investigation

NO BODIES = NO CRASH

No bodies?
Not there anyway. No one has even attempted to explain the absence of bodies. OK, so a few bits and pieces were picked up, including one headless body, but it could not be matched with any passenger!! What does that tell you?
No bodies = no crash
The idea that "cuttlefish got them", as suggested by one silly person, is preposterous.
Cuttlefish, are small, even the bigger ones could never consume 269 skulls, vertebrae, femurs etc in half a day as suggested. Preposterous.

RADAR

The US military knew the exact location of KAL007 at all times.
With radar at Cape Newenham, St Pauls, Shemya, Wakkanai, Abashire, Misawa; with AWAC planes; with USS Observation Island. They knew.
Lest anyone say, "They only look for hostile planes..." I reply, "Oh yeah?, so all the Russians had to do was to buy a 747 and fly it on a civilian air route to Alaska? GET REAL
EVERY radar contact has to be identified, monitored, tracked and logged. In both directions, just in case a B-52 went loopy and decided to burn Petropavlovsk. That is what the radar network is for, that is what the US public would expect, and they got it.
THE US military knew the exact location of KAL007 at all times

NAVY

The following USN ships were in the Sea of Japan in September 1983: Badger(frigate), Eliot (destroyer), Sterett (cruiser), Callaghan (destroyer), Wichita (supply), Munro (cutter), Narragansett(tug), Conserver (tug).
Come on guys, you know what happened. The official Navy line is that no wreckage at all was recovered, only one old cooking pot!
Maybe something did crash there, but not a 747 and the Navy was there to recover every last tiny piece of whatever it was.
Come on you guys, tell us what happened, what did you find. kalinfo@yahoo.com

George Bush (Snr)

41st President and before that, Vice President to Ronald Reagan. Former director of the CIA (1976-81), father of Republican candidate George W Bush. What has poppa said about the Korean Air Disaster of 1983? Zip. I wish someone would ask him. There is a George H. W. Bush on one e-mail directory at treypeny@erols.com, but I got no reply. Dubbya is Pres 43.
Try asking him to ask poppa?
George Bush (Snr) knows what really happened
WILLIAM CLARK
...was National Security Advisor at the time, see "Shootdown" by RW Johnson for a full study of this spooky character
William Clark knows what really happened

Those Tapes

"The pilots voices were unemotional, as if they were reporting to their ground controllers on the progress of the most routine training exercise." (Time magazine Sept 29 1983 Page 10)
Maybe it was just that? A recording of a training exercise, nothing to do with KAL007? A full transcript is in the ICAO reports, but there is never a mention of anything like a hostile intruder.
It is ALL routine exercise jargon.

The Russians have shot it down!

So they should be able to produce pieces of wreckage, and explain the body question. They haven't, they won't, they can't. Therefore, they didn't?
I have this mental picture of the Soviet Supremo demanding of his Chief of Staff;
The Americans say we shot down their plane, so what do you say to that?
COS;(thinks... Oh dear, what can I say, that we didn't have a clue what was going on? much easier to say Yes we did, and then babble on about protecting sacred Soviet airspace.
I don't think they did

Shemya

A small island at the end of the Aleutian Island chain. Before wide-bodied jets came, it was used as a refueling stop for flights between Alaska and Japan. There are two airstrips and a big radio interception operation. The giant radar Cobra Dane was built there in 1981. There are photoes of Cobra Dane taken in June 1983.
In 1983, Base Air Group 5073 was commanded by Col Frey.
Check out Shemya page for lots of interesting information, and a map.
Shemya is the key to all the 007 questions

Conjecture

007 and 015 are in collusion with Casey's CIA. 007 is off course even as it leaves Anchorage. It meets with an RC-135 and they fly one above the other so that their radar images merge. Then 007 heads for Shemya with the verifiable story of radar and radio malfunction. The RC-135 goes to Alaska. Also present is a prototype stealth plane on a real-time test of its capabilities.
Sure, it had been tested at Groom Lake   all the previous year, but now Casey says;
Lets send a real message to the Ruskies, let's tell them plain, we can go wherever we like, whenever we like. And you can't do a darned thing about it.
It is the stealth plane that overflies Kamchatka and easily evades Soviet attempts to follow it.
(A 747 would have been caught dead easy at Mach 0.8)

But 007 crashes at Shemya. For reasons only known to the spooks at Langley who know full well that the Soviets are totally confused, the 'Shot down by the Russians' story is prepared. Then they wait a bit, (20 hours) to see how the Soviets muddle along. Nothing happens, so then Shultz, Kirkpatrick and Reagan do their stuff.
A US plane from a base in Japan flies over Sahkalin and goes into a steep dive to simulate a crash. There has to be some reason why none of the parties will release their radar tapes.
A Marine Corps special detachment goes to Shemya to put some pieces of plane and bodies in a C-130 for dumping into the Sea of Japan.

Problems

Even I find it hard to believe that such an enormous cover-up could be attempted.
I find the Shultz-Reagan conjecture even harder to believe. Can't you just hear Mr Reagan saying Oh so sincerely "We just don't have that information right now".

Minor things

  1. No mention has ever been made of observing Soviet fighters on any of the many radars in the neighborhood. Why not?
  2. The British government didn't say a single word about the event for several days.(17!) Did they wait until it was clear the Soviets didn't know what was being done to them and that the world media were not capable of exposing the cover-up? Britain has a 30-year secrecy rule. So in 2013 there might be some revealing answers? Or will their sanitation department clean up first?
  3. The (false) waypoint reports. How come all the radio messages after halfway were clear, precise, on-time? Maybe they came from 015? That would answer that puzzle. (Help! can a voice print detect a mimic?)

AFTERTHOUGHTS

You really ought to read "Incident at Sakhalin" by Michel Brun. So, should I change my story? Maybe,... but not yet. Brun gives a detailed, believable explanation for the confusing radio and radar data, and his analysis of soviet salvage operation is powerful.
But he still doesn't say a lot about HL7442, and his JMSA sources are not much help on the extensive US salvage activity in the region. If HL7442 did crash near Niigata then it should still be there - unless the Project Jennifer team moved in with vacuum cleaners. And there would have been floating debris and bodies. Are there fishing boats at Sado and Niigata? Would they have seen debris? Has anybody asked them?

So, my initial equation stands, ie, NB=NC
The F117 stealth technology would fit Bruns ideas, but they are not mentioned, Nor is Shemya. It should be. Admiral Prouty's view could be explored more. He might have a reason for suggesting that HL7442 was deliberately destroyed over the Kuril Trench.(page 247) My view is that although Casey (CIA) and Clark (NSA) were extremists and paranoid, accusing them of blowing up a jumbo full of civilians is going too far.

An accidental crash is more reasonable, so my conjecture stands too. Bruns account of the air battle can be fitted in...maybe.
But why the Soviet insistence on a one-intruder, one-shootdown, and the subsequent humiliation they endured?
Brun's explanation is flimsy, (and mine is worse?).
Your thoughts are welcome on this and any other issue.
Don't write to me, tell the world! Put news, thoughts, facts, on a Newsgroup, ie, alt.disasters.aviation. Use Google, click on groups, use a webmail account.... tell the world.

Aviation Archaeology
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Other Good Links

Mirror of John Keppel's page.  A reasoned and sensible commentary about the book "Incident at Sakhalin" by Michel Brun. A good read.
and
Insight Magazine article Another good story by an independent observer.
Wreckage Investigation   Amazing what can be learned...
Another look at "Incident at Sakhalin"

FEEDBACK

I'm just glad someone is reading the page! Some interesting stuff has come in. But you guys... you persons should really be telling the world, not just me. It's easy, just do what I have done, do it on a Geocities page oocities.com
Read all about it at nuclearfiles.org/nwa/ but you won't learn much, (Dec 5 1965)

That is the scariest comment I have EVER heard!
The end. Put your own page up.
more to come?...
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