The Downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007

Abstract

On September 1, 1983, a Korean Air Lines (KAL) Boeing 747 on a regularly scheduled flight from Anchorage, Alaska, to Seoul, South Korea, was shot down by a Soviet fighter. The Korean airliner had penetrated restricted Soviet airspace over a sensitive military base located on Sakhalin Island, on the northern Pacific coast of the U.S.S.R. All 269 people aboard the airliner were killed. The downing of the KAL jet resulted in the greatest loss of life and produced the strongest international reaction of any previous use of military force against civilian aircraft.