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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ubc-visi!sadowski
From: sadowski@ubc-visi
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: flight #007
Message-ID: <439@ubc-visi.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Sep-83 13:53:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-visi.439
Posted: Fri Sep  2 13:53:14 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Sep-83 18:03:10 EDT
Lines: 49


	I think the important thing to remember is to not jump to
conclusions. Important questions should be asked.
	The biggest one should be: why was the airliner so far off course?
This is not the first time that a KAL passenger jet has strayed over
Soviet air space. I find this strange as Canadian Pacific Airlines has
flown the same route since 1949 without "accidentally" flying over Russia.
According to experts, with the sophisticated navigational computers
onboard a 747, it is almost impossible to fly off-course. The system has
two back-ups, uses no compasses, cannot be jammed from the outside - in
short, these experts say the only way a 747 can fly off-course is if the
computers are fed the wrong input before departure.
	Now the Soviets' Aeroflot (sp?) airliners have been known to
fly outside of the flight-lanes assigned to them when flying in the
U.S. In fact, I think they have been censured by the Americans for this
practice.
	This reminds me then, of the John Le Carre novel, "The Looking
Glass War," in which the pilot of a passenger jet is persuaded to fly
off-course over East Germany to take photographs of sites of
strategic importance.
	The rest is pure speculation on my part. It is possible that,
with the approval of his government, the pilot of flight 007,
intentionally flew into Soviet air space. For what purpose, I do not
know. However, if he did have Korean approval, then it is quite likely
that the American government was at least aware of the situation - if
not in agreement. (By the way, this could explain why the State
Department was able to give such a detailed account of the flight; they
were monitoring it because they knew it was not "ordinary".)
The Soviets intercepted the plane.
	Now to what advantage would it be for the Soviets to shoot down
a plane full of innocent passengers and risk global condemnation?
Answer: none. However, it would be to their advantage, if they suspected
the jet of spying, to force the plane to land in the Soviet Union and
produce evidence of espionage - be it cameras or whatever.
	This is probably the option they chose. The Soviet fighter jets
probably tried to force the KAL jet down. The KAL pilot gambled. He
speculated that the Soviets could ill afford an international incident by
shooting him down. He refused to comply and hoped that he could make it
into international air space before the Soviets could decide to take any
drastic action.
	He gambled wrong.
	Now by no means do I think the above account to be true. The point
of the above explanation is that before we make any response, we make sure
we have all information and know exactly what happened. It's all too easy
to make a knee-jerk response and assume who is "right."

Ed Sadowski
Vancouver, B.C.
ubc-vision!sadowski