page_title: Korean Air Lines Flight 007
section_title: U.S. reaction and further developments
hierarchical_section_title: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 / Political events / U.S. reaction and further developments
caption_attribution_description: Over the horizon antenna, JASDF 18th watch unit(Wakkanai city).
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: The shootdown happened at a very tense time in U.S.–Soviet relations during the Cold War. The U.S. adopted a strategy of releasing a substantial amount of hitherto highly classified intelligence information in order to exploit a major propaganda advantage over the Soviet Union.
  Six hours after the plane was downed, the South Korean government issued an announcement that the plane had merely been forced to land abruptly by the Soviets, and that all passengers and crew were safe. U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz held a press conference about the incident at 10:45 on September 1, during which he divulged some details of intercepted Soviet communications and denounced the actions of the Soviet Union.
  On September 5, 1983, President Reagan condemned the shooting down of the airplane as the "Korean airline massacre", a "crime against humanity [that] must never be forgotten" and an "act of barbarism... [and] inhuman brutality". The following day, the U.S. ambassador to the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick delivered an audio-visual presentation in the United Nations Security Council, using audio tapes of the Soviet pilots' radio conversations and a map of Flight 007's path in depicting its shooting down. Following this presentation, TASS acknowledged for the first time that the aircraft had indeed been shot down after warnings were ignored. The Soviets challenged many of the facts presented by the U.S., and revealed the previously unknown presence of a USAF RC-135 surveillance aircraft whose path had crossed that of KAL 007.
  On September 7, Japan and the United States jointly released a transcript of Soviet communications, intercepted by the listening post at Wakkanai, to an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council. Reagan issued a National Security Directive stating that the Soviets were not to be let off the hook, and initiating "a major diplomatic effort to keep international and domestic attention focused on the Soviet action". The move was seen by the Soviet leadership as confirmation of the West's bad intentions.
  A high level U.S.–Soviet summit, the first in nearly a year, was scheduled for September 8, 1983, in Madrid. The Shultz–Gromyko meeting went ahead, but was overshadowed by the KAL 007 event. It ended acrimoniously, with Shultz stating: "Foreign Minister Gromyko's response to me today was even more unsatisfactory than the response he gave in public yesterday. I find it totally unacceptable." Reagan ordered the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on September 15, 1983, to revoke the license of Aeroflot Soviet Airlines to operate flights to and from the United States. Aeroflot flights to North America were consequently available only through Canadian and Mexican cities, forcing the Soviet foreign minister to cancel his scheduled trip to the UN. Aeroflot service to the U.S. was not restored until April 29, 1986.
  An emergency session of the ICAO was held in Montreal, Canada. On September 12, 1983, the Soviet Union used its veto to block a United Nations resolution condemning it for shooting down the aircraft.
  Shortly after the Soviet Union shot down KAL 007, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, operating the commercial airports around New York City, denied Soviet aircraft landing rights, in violation of the United Nations Charter that required the host nation to allow all member countries access to the UN. In reaction, TASS and some at the UN raised the question of whether the UN should move its headquarters from the United States. Charles Lichenstein, acting U.S. permanent representative to the UN under Ambassador Kirkpatrick, responded, "We will put no impediment in your way. The members of the U.S. mission to the United Nations will be down at the dockside waving you a fond farewell as you sail off into the sunset." Administration officials were quick to announce that Lichenstein was speaking only for himself.
  In the Cold War context of Operation RYAN, the Strategic Defence Initiative, Pershing II missile deployment in Europe, and the upcoming Exercise Able Archer, the Soviet Government perce
caption: Japanese listening post at Wakkanai
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