(7 of 10)
Whether he knew it or not, Captain Chun and the other 268 innocent travelers on his airliner soon were in trouble. Somehow, Flight 007 had passed those lines, invisible in the sky but so clearly etched on maps, that mark forbidden airspace. The Soviets scrambled MiG-23s, their widely deployed supersonic jet fighter, and Sukhoi-15s, a slightly older but nonetheless lethal interceptor, to follow the 747. Japanese and American intelligence sources later figured that at least eight of the single-seat fighters pursued the relatively slow-moving airliner.
According to the account of Secretary Shultz, Flight 007 first crossed the Kamchatka Peninsula, then the Sea of Okhotsk and the island of Sakhalin. Unless it changed course, the airliner apparently would have approached the area around Vladivostok on the Soviet mainland. This cold and bleak region is ordinarily off limits to foreigners.
The Soviets have military reasons for their sensitivity. Kamchatka is the site of Soviet missile-testing facilities and early-warning radar systems. The port of Petropavlovsk is home base for some 90 nuclear-powered submarines. The Soviets hope to turn the Sea of Okhotsk, between the peninsula and the mainland, into a private sheltered lake for submarines armed with missiles that could strike the continental U.S. The southern half of Sakhalin bristles with at least six Soviet airfields and is merely 27 miles across the Strait of Soya from Japan's Hokkaido Island. The strait is a choke point for Soviet naval vessels moving from the Sea of Japan into the North Pacific. Vladivostok and Sovetskaya-Gavan are the main bases for the 820 ships of the Soviet Pacific fleet.
The Soviets had every right of international law to send fighters up to inspect the intruder. Common sense, however, suggests that even the most expert observer flying some six miles high in the dim predawn light is not likely to see anything that U.S. surveillance satellites have not repeatedly scrutinized and photographed in far greater detail.
But rationality did not prevail. At 2:12 p.m. (3:12 in the morning in Japan), a Soviet pilot told his ground station that he was close enough to see the Korean airliner. Three minutes later, Captain Chun, apparently unaware of his hostile company, routinely asked air controllers in Tokyo, who had taken over supervision of the flight from Anchorage, for permission to climb to 35,000 ft. Permission was given.
Six minutes later, a Soviet flyer radioed that the 747 was just short of that altitude, at 10,000 meters (33,300 ft.). About the same time, Japanese radar operators in Hokkaido noted that, although Flight 007 had ust reported its position as 115 miles south of Hokkaido, they found no corresponding radar blip there. They did spot one 115 miles north of the island.
Was Captain Chun aware that he was off course? Apparently not. Had he seen the interceptors trailing him? Unlikely, since he almost certainly would have informed the Tokyo controllers of his unwelcome escort. Not once did he indicate that he was in an unusual situation. If all was considered normal aboard the 747, the attendants would now be serving breakfast to the awakening passengers. There would be grapefruit and beef brochette for the high-fare travelers, a croissant and Spanish omelet for the others.