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No final decisions were made at Friday night's two-hour NSC session, but the President appeared to be leaning toward finding ways of punishing the Soviets in the field in which they transgressed—civil aviation. Among those who attended the meeting, in addition to Reagan's usual foreign policy advisers, were Acting Transportation Secretary James Burnley and Federal Aviation Administration Chief J. Lynn Helms. The U.S. was already conferring with allies over possible joint moves at a meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organization to be held later this month in Montreal. Said one State Department official, referring to the Soviet national airline: "We want to do something that will affect the relations of Aeroflot to the rest of the world." One possibility: ground crews at international airports could refuse to clean Aeroflot cabins, stock its planes or refuel its empty tanks, effectively grounding the carrier outside of the Soviet Union.
The prospects for a more radical move, like pulling out of the INF negotiations, seemed never to have been seriously considered. "I would not look for us to discontinue our discussions because the stakes are too high," said a senior Administration official. "We would not be serving our own country or the world at large should we stop our efforts to achieve arms reductions." Such an approach would be in keeping with the Administration's "two track" policy toward the Soviets, challenging them when U.S. interests require it, seeking agreements when mutual interests are served.
The journey that was to end in death and crisis began unportentously at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport. The gleaming white Boeing 747-200B jumbo jet, trimmed in red and blue and bearing Korean Air Lines' sleek symbolic bird on its towering 63-ft.-high tail, lumbered routinely away from Gate 15. Due to leave at 11:50 p.m. E.D.T. on Tuesday, Flight 007 was 35 minutes late taking off.
Even before the huge aircraft, 232 ft. long and 196 ft. between wing tips, rose into the cloudless sky, the 14 women and four men flight attendants began making their 244 passengers comfortable. Still in their standard blue uniforms, the attendants served champagne to the twelve first-class passengers, who had paid $3,588 (round trip) to enjoy the roomy luxury of the top-deck lounge behind the cockpit cabin. Down on the main deck, nearly all of the 24 seats in the business-class section, where tickets cost $2,380, were occupied. Toward the rear, where passengers could fly for as little as $1,200, nearly 80 seats were empty. Flight 007 was bound for Seoul, but 130 of the travelers planned to go on to more exotic Far East destinations such as Hong Kong, Tokyo, Taiwan. They were flying KAL because it offered some of the lowest fares to Asia.
None of the passengers could be looking forward to the flight. They would spend seven hours on the nightlong 3,400 mile leg to Anchorage. Then, still mainly in darkness as they headed away from sunrise in the east, they would face an additional 7½ dreary hours before reaching Seoul's Kimpo Airport in what KAL brochures call "the land of morning calm."