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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.aviation,net.followup
Subject: Re: KAL 747 Airline saga
Message-ID: <372@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 11-Sep-83 16:26:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.372
Posted: Sun Sep 11 16:26:04 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Sep-83 16:36:14 EDT
References: <2211@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: D.C.I.E.M, Toronto, Canada
Lines: 40

The Toronto Globe and Mail last Wednesday (7 Sept) carried an interview
with "the national security editor of Defence Science Magazine" with
some interesting comments not yet presented in this discussion.

"South Korea has regularly put passengers at risk by using airliners as
flying spy stations."

"Korean Air Lines planes overfly Soviet territory whenever they can
manage it. An airliner is the most perfect intelligence platform
you can think of. It is large, stable and slow-moving so that it can
take accurate readings of activity on the ground and the air around it."

"A `black box' recorder in the cargo hold of a jetliner can record
frequencies of radio and radar signals in areas it is passing over.
The digital recording is fed into a computer that sorts through the
readings and picks out information of military value. Frequencies
are changed regularly and the information must be updated every few
weeks.
  An amazing amount of information can be picked up from one of these
flights. From the intelligence point of view this is a top priority,
for instance for jamming radars."

"The Soviet decision to shoot down the airliner was the culmination of
a series of overflight incidents and warnings."

The article also points out that Soviet and Cuban airliners regularly
use the same spying tactics, points out that KAL has the very best of
navigational equipment, and even so overflew the main Soviet submarine
base on Kamchatka and at least three other military installations.
"The plane's mission was just too obvious to the Russians. What happened
to Flight 007 was inevitable."

I still think it is inexcusable to shoot down an airliner for spying
in peacetime, but the Russian moral system is different from ours,
and it seems there was lots of warning that such an incident would
happen if KAL continued its practices. From their point of view, their
stance of moral indignation and surprise at the US reaction is quite
reasonable.

Martin Taylor