After a scary ride, a happy−and lucky−landing
We'll probably never know exactly what happened," says a U.S. Defense official of the forced landing of Korean Air Lines' wayward Flight 902 after it had blundered into Soviet airspace on the night of April 20. Indeed, the full story of how the errant Paris-to-Anchorage-to-Seoul polar flight came to be fired upon over the strategic Kola Peninsula will probably be known only to the Soviets. But parts of the picture have begun to emerge, both from U.S. intelligence sources and from the 106 passengers and those crew members who finally were returned home early last week. The pilot and the navigator, who had been detained longer for interrogation, pleaded guilty "to violating the U.S.S.R.'s airspace," but were later pardoned by the Soviets and freed.
To Washington, the most intriguing aspect of the episode was the apparent sloppiness of Soviet air defenses on the Kola Peninsula, the site of a large naval base (at Murmansk) and important missile installations. The high-flying (35,000 ft.) Korean 707 should have been spotted by Soviet radar when it was as many as 500 miles offshore. Yet it not only flew unchallenged through the 200-mile-wide air defense zone that the Soviets maintain off their shores, but charged along for at least 18 minutes over Russian territory before fighters intercepted it.
When the Soviet interceptorshalf a dozen hot, 1,800-m.p.h. Sukhoi-15s−approached the 707, their pilots apparently did not know what to do. Radio contact was never established. None of the standard international signals to land, such as lowering wheels and turning on landing lights, were given. Instead, U.S. officials say, one of the Sukhoi-15s fired two missiles at the plane; the first hit above the left wing, while the second missed entirely. The attack killed a Korean businessman and a Japanese tourist and depressurized the fuselage, forcing the pilot, Captain Kim Chang Kyu, to begin a steep dive to an altitude of 3,000 ft.
At this point, according to U.S. intelligence experts who monitored the Soviet radio traffic, the Sukhoi-15 flyers evidently lost track of the 707 altogether. Indeed, the Soviet pilots radioed their base that the plane had been shot down. Eventually, reported Copilot Cha Soon Do, one of the interceptors reappeared ahead of the 707 in what seemed to be a "follow me" position. The Koreans tried to comply, but could not: the lead-footed Russian roared off too fast.
After that, the Koreans meandered over the moonlit countryside, to burn off fuel and find a place to come down. "We attempted to land three times in grainfields or along roads," Cha said. "But we could not, because of obstructing hills and high-tension wires." Finally, with fuel running out after 90 minutes of searching, Kim decided to set down on a frozen lake near the town of Kem and gamble that the ice would support his plane's 100-ton weight. The 707 slid to a stop just short of a hill at the lake's edge. Kim shouted: "We have survived!" and the passengers burst into applause. Two hours later, the first Soviet troops appeared.