page_title: Korean Air Lines Flight 007
section_title: Interim developments
hierarchical_section_title: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 / Investigations / Interim developments
caption_attribution_description: English: MOSCOW. On 21 February 1989 Moscow city and national-territorial electoral district No. 1 of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) held the district\'s pre-electoral assembly in the Hall of Columns in the House of the Unions. At this assembly 10 candidates from Moscow presented and discussed their electoral platforms. The assembly delegates elected first deputy Director of Gosstroi and Minister of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin, as candidate for the Congress of People's Deputies.Русский: МОСКВА. 21 февраля 1989 года в Колонном зале Дома Союзов состоялось окружное предвыборное собрание Московского городского национально-территориального избирательного округа №1 РСФСР, на котором были заслушаны и обсуждены предвыборные платформы 10 кандидатов от Москвы. Делегаты собрания избрали кандидатом в народные депутаты СССР первого заместителя председателя Госстроя СССР, министра СССР Бориса Ельцина. Italiano: Mosca, il 21 febbraio 1989 nella sala delle Colonne della Casa dei sindacati si tenne l'assemblea preelettorale della circoscrizione nazionale-territoriale cittadina moscovita n. 1 della RSFSR, in cui furono ascoltati e discussi i programmi elettorali dei dieci candidati di Mosca. I delegati scelsero come candidato a Deputato del popolo dell'URSS il Primo vicepresidente del Gosstroj dell'URSS e Ministro dell'URSS Boris El'cin.
context_page_description: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska. On September 1, 1983, the South Korean airliner servicing the flight was shot down by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor. The Boeing 747 airliner was en route from Anchorage to Seoul, but due to a navigational mistake made by the KAL crew the airliner deviated from its original planned route and flew through Soviet prohibited airspace about the time of a U.S. aerial reconnaissance mission. The Soviet Air Forces treated the unidentified aircraft as an intruding U.S. spy plane, and destroyed it with air-to-air missiles, after firing warning shots which were likely not seen by the KAL pilots. The Korean airliner eventually crashed in the sea near Moneron Island west of Sakhalin in the Sea of Japan. All 269 passengers and crew aboard were killed, including Larry McDonald, a United States Representative from Georgia. The Soviets found the wreckage under the sea on September 15, and found the flight recorders in October, but this information was kept secret until 1993.
context_section_description: Hans Ephraimson-Abt, whose daughter Alice Ephraimson-Abt had died on the flight, chaired the American Association for Families of KAL 007 Victims. He single-handedly pursued three U.S. administrations for answers about the flight, flying to Washington 250 times and meeting with 149 State Department officials. Following the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., Ephraimson-Abt persuaded U.S. Senators Ted Kennedy, Sam Nunn, Carl Levin, and Bill Bradley to write to the Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev requesting information about the flight.
  Glasnost reforms in the same year brought about a relaxation of press censorship; consequently reports started to appear in the Soviet press suggesting that the Soviet military knew the location of the wreckage and had possession of the flight data recorders. On December 10, 1991, Senator Jesse Helms of the Committee on Foreign Relations, wrote to Boris Yeltsin requesting information concerning the survival of passengers and crew of KAL 007 including the fate of Congressman Larry McDonald.
  On June 17, 1992, President Yeltsin revealed that after the 1991 failed coup attempt concerted attempts were made to locate Soviet-era documents relating to KAL 007. He mentioned the discovery of "a memorandum from K.G.B. to the Central Committee of the Communist Party," stating that a tragedy had taken place and adding that there are documents "which would clarify the entire picture." Yeltsin said the memo continued to say that "these documents are so well concealed that it is doubtful that our children will be able to find them." On September 11, 1992, Yeltsin officially acknowledged the existence of the recorders, and promised to give the South Korean government a transcript of the flight recorder contents as found in KGB files.
  In October 1992, Hans Ephraimson-Abt led a delegation of families and U.S. State Department officials to Moscow at the invitation of President Yeltsin. During a state ceremony at St. Catherine's Hall in the Kremlin, the KAL family delegation was handed a portfolio containing partial transcripts of the KAL 007 cockpit voice recorder, translated into Russian, and documents of the Politburo pertaining to the tragedy.
  In November 1992, President Yeltsin handed the two recorder containers to Korean President Roh Tae-Woo, but not the tapes themselves. The following month, the ICAO voted to reopen the KAL 007 investigation in order to take the newly released information into account. The tapes were handed to ICAO in Paris on January 8, 1993. Also handed over at the same time were tapes of the ground to air communications of the Soviet military. The tapes were transcribed by the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la sécurité de l'Aviation Civile (BEA) in Paris in the presence of representatives from Japan, The Russian Federation, South Korea, and the United States.
  A 1993 official enquiry by the Russian Federation absolved the Soviet hierarchy of blame, determining that the incident was a case of mistaken identity. On May 28, 1993, the ICAO presented its second report to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
caption: Boris Yeltsin
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