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Why were the Russian pilots so trigger-happy? Western experts speculate that the Soviets might have been more than normally jittery about security in the Kola Peninsula area because of an embarrassing incident that occurred a few weeks earlier: a light plane flown by a daredevil Swedish pilot landed on a lake near Leningrad to pick up three would-be Soviet defectors; although the rendezvous failed, the pilot managed to fly away scot-free.
How could Kim, 46, a veteran pilot with military experience, stray off course on a run he had flown many times? At least one alert passenger, Kishio Ohtani, a Tokyo camera-shop owner, realized that something was amiss when the Arctic sun, which had been on the plane's right side while it was on course to Alaska, suddenly appeared on the left. According to Ohtani, after the landing Kim explained to several passengers that he began to feel that his compass had gone awry and that his plane had reversed course about four hours out of Paris. When he saw an island that he knew he would not see if he were on course, he started turning around. Just then, the Soviet interceptors appeared.
Russian officials have tried to counter charges of hip shooting by Soviet pilots by insisting that the 707 had taken evasive action "for more than two hours" before it was forced down. Meanwhile, Korean Air Lines announced that henceforth only new DC-10 jumbo jets would be used on the Seoul-Paris run. The DC-10 is equipped with a sophisticated inertial navigation system that is almost foolproof. ∎