page_title: Korean Air Lines Flight 007
section_title: Search for KAL 007 in international waters
hierarchical_section_title: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 / Search and rescue / Search for KAL 007 in international waters
caption_attribution_description: English: This is the Task Force 71 After Action Report map for the Joint U.S.-South Korea-Japanese Search operations in international waters for KAL 007, The report, authored by Commander Walter T. Piotti, and map are now unclassified, released, and have been distributed to various public bodies, including the American Association for Families of the Victims of KAL 007. The printed legend is original to the map and explanatory arrows (clearly distinguishable) are provided by Bert Schlossberg.
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: Immediately after the shootdown, South Korea, owner of the aircraft and therefore prime considerant for jurisdiction, designated the United States and Japan as search and salvage agents, thereby making it illegal for the Soviet Union to salvage the aircraft, providing it was found outside Soviet territorial waters. If it did so, the United States would now be legally entitled to use force against the Soviets, if necessary, to prevent retrieval of any part of the plane.
  On the same day as the shootdown, Rear Admiral William A. Cockell, Commander, Task Force 71, and a skeleton staff, taken by helicopter from Japan, embarked in USS Badger (stationed off Vladivostok at time of the flight) on September 9 for further transfer to the destroyer USS Elliot to assume duties as Officer in Tactical Command (OTC) of the Search and Rescue (SAR) effort. Surface search began immediately and on into September 13. U.S. underwater operations began on September 14. On September 10, 1983, with no further hope of finding survivors, Task Force 71's mission was reclassified from a "Search and Rescue" (SAR) operation to a "Search and Salvage" (SAS).
  On October 17, Rear Admiral Walter T. Piotti, Jr. took command of the Task Force and its Search and Salvage mission from Rear Admiral Cockell. First to be searched was a 60-square-mile (160 km²) "high probability" area. This was unsuccessful. On October 21, Task Force 71 extended its search within coordinates encompassing, in an arc around the Soviet territorial boundaries north of Moneron Island, an area of 225 square miles (583 km²), reaching to the west of Sakhalin Island. This was the "large probability" area. The search areas were outside the 12-nautical-mile (22 km) Soviet-claimed territorial boundaries. The northwestern-most point of the search touched the Soviet territorial boundary closest to the naval port of Nevelsk on Sakhalin. Nevelsk was 46 nautical miles (85 km) from Moneron. This larger search was also unsuccessful.
  The vessels used in the search, for the Soviet side as well as the US side (US, South Korea, Japan) were both civilian trawlers, especially equipped for both the SAR and SAS operations, and various types of warships and support ships. The Soviet side also employed both civilian and military divers. The Soviet search, beginning on the day of the shootdown and continuing until November 6, was confined to the 60-square-mile (160 km²) "high probability" area in international waters, and within Soviet territorial waters to the north of Moneron Island. The area within Soviet territorial waters was off-limits to the U.S., South Korean, and Japanese boats. From September 3 to 29, four ships from South Korea had joined in the search.
  Piotti Jr, commander of Task Force 71 of 7th Fleet would summarize the US and Allied, and then the Soviets', Search and Salvage operations:
  Not since the search for the hydrogen bomb lost off Palomares, Spain, has the U.S. Navy undertaken a search effort of the magnitude or import of the search for the wreckage of KAL Flight 007.
  
  Within six days of the downing of KAL 007, the Soviets had deployed six ships to the general crash site area. Over the next 8 weeks of observation by U.S. naval units this number grew to a daily average of 19 Soviet naval, naval-associated and commercial (but undoubtedly naval-subordinated) ships in the Search and Salvage (SAS) area. The number of Soviet ships in the SAS area over this period ranged from a minimum of six to a maximum of thirty-two and included at least forty-eight different ships comprising forty different ship classes.
  These missions met with interference by the Soviets, in violation of the 1972 Incident at Sea agreement, and included false flag and fake light signals, sending an armed boarding party to threaten to board a U.S.-chartered Japanese auxiliary vessel (blocked by U.S. warship interposition), interfering with a helicopter coming off the USS Elliot (Sept. 7), attempted ramming of rigs used by the South Koreans in their quadrant search, hazardous maneuvering of Gavril Sarychev and near-collision wit
caption: U.S. Task Force 71 After action report map of search area in international waters
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