1969 EC - 121 shootdown incident The 1969 EC - 121 shootdown incident occurred on April 15 , 1969 when a United States Navy Lockheed EC - 121M Warning Star on a reconnaissance mission was shot down by North Korean MiG - 17 aircraft over the Sea of Japan . The plane crashed off the North Korean coast and all 31 Americans on board were killed . The Nixon administration chose not to retaliate against North Korea apart from staging a naval demonstration in the Sea of Japan a few days later . Instead it resumed the reconnaissance flights within a week to demonstrate that it would not be intimidated by the action while at the same time avoiding a confrontation . Flight of Deep Sea 129 . Beggar Shadow mission . At 07 : 00 local time of Tuesday , 15 April 1969 , an EC - 121M of the U . S . Navy ' s Fleet Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron One ( VQ - 1 ) took off from NAS Atsugi , Japan , on an intelligence - gathering reconnaissance mission . The aircraft , Bureau number 135749 , c / n 4316 , bore the tail code " PR - 21 " and used the radio call sign " Deep Sea 129 " . Aboard were 8 officers and 23 enlisted men under the command of LCDR James Overstreet . Nine of the crew , including one Marine NCO , were Naval Security Group cryptologic technicians ( CTs ) and linguists in Russian and Korean . Deep Sea 129 ' s assigned task was a routine " Beggar Shadow " signal intelligence ( SIGINT ) collection mission . Its flight profile northwest over the Sea of Japan took it to an area offshore of Musu Point , where the EC - 121M would turn northeast toward the Soviet Union and orbit along a long elliptical track . These missions , while nominally under the command of Seventh Fleet and CINCPAC , were actually controlled operationally by the Naval Security Group detachment at NSF Kamiseya , Japan , under the direction of the National Security Agency . LCDR Overstreet ' s orders included a prohibition from approaching closer than to the North Korean coast . VQ - 1 had flown the route and orbit for two years , and the mission had been graded as being of " minimal risk . " During the first three months of 1969 nearly 200 similar missions had been flown by both Navy and U . S . Air Force reconnaissance aircraft off North Korea ' s east coast without incident . The mission was tracked by a series of security agencies within the Department of Defense that were pre - briefed on the mission , including land - based Air Force radars in Japan and South Korea . The USAF 6918th Security Squadron at Hakata Air Station , Japan , USAF 6988th Security Squadron at Yokota Air Base , Japan , and Detachment 1 , 6922nd Security Wing at Osan Air Base monitored the North Korean reaction by intercepting its air defense search radar transmissions . The Army Security Agency communications interception station at Osan listened to North Korean air defense radio traffic , and the Naval Security Group at Kamiseya , which provided the seven of the nine CTs aboard " Deep Sea 129 " , also intercepted Soviet Air Force search radars . Interception and shootdown . At 12 : 34 local time , roughly six hours into the mission , the Army Security Agency and radars in Korea detected the takeoff of two North Korean Air Force MiG - 17 s and tracked them , assuming that they were responding in some fashion to the mission of Deep Sea 129 . In the meantime the EC - 121 filed a scheduled activity report by radio on time at 13 : 00 and did not indicate anything out of the ordinary . Twenty - two minutes later the radars lost the picture of the MiGs and did not reacquire it until 13 : 37 , closing with Deep Sea 129 for a probable intercept . The communications that this activity generated within the National Security network was monitored by the EC - 121 ' s parent unit , VQ - 1 , which at 13 : 44 sent Deep Sea 129 a " Condition 3 " alert by radio , indicating it might be under attack . LCDR Overstreet acknowledged the warning and complied with procedures to abort the mission and return to base . At 13 : 47 the radar tracks of the MiGs merged with that of Deep Sea 129 , which disappeared from the radar picture two minutes later . Initial reaction . At first none of the agencies were alarmed , since procedures also dictated that the EC - 121 rapidly descend below radar coverage , and Overstreet had not transmitted that he was under attack . When it did not reappear within ten minutes , however , VQ - 1 requested a scramble of two Air Force Convair F - 106 Delta Dart interceptors to provide combat air patrol for the EC - 121 . By 14 : 20 the Army Security Agency post had become increasingly concerned . It first sent a FLASH message ( a high priority intelligence message to be actioned within six minutes ) indicating that " Deep Sea 129 " had disappeared , and then at 14 : 44 , an hour after the shoot - down , sent a CRITIC ( " critical intelligence " ) message ( the highest message priority , to be processed and sent within two minutes ) to six addressees within the National Command Authority , including President Richard M . Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger . Search efforts . A search and rescue effort was immediately launched by VQ - 1 using aircraft of both the U . S . Air Force and Navy . The first response was by an Air Force Lockheed HC - 130 Hercules , with a Boeing KC - 135A Stratotanker tanker in support and an escort of fighters , but the search effort rapidly expanded to a total of 26 aircraft . At short notice , two U . S . Navy destroyer s , USS " Henry W . Tucker " and USS " Dale " , sailed from Sasebo , Japan , on the afternoon of April 15 toward the area of last contact ( ) , a position approximately off the North Korean port of Ch ' ŏngjin . The first debris sighting occurred at 09 : 30 the next morning , 16 April , by a Navy VP - 40 P - 3B Orion aircraft . Two destroyers of the Soviet Navy # 429 Kotlin Class and # 580 Kashin Class were directed to the scene by the Navy aircraft . The Air Force HC - 130 SAR aircraft , that relieved the P - 3B , dropped the Soviet ships URC - 10 survival radios and eventually made voice contact in the afternoon as the Soviet craft were departing . Both Soviet ships indicated they had recovered debris from the aircraft but had not found any indication of survivors . That evening " Tucker " arrived in the area and after midnight recovered part of the aircraft perforated with shrapnel damage . At approximately noon of 17 April " Tucker " recovered the first of two crewmen ' s bodies , then rendezvoused with the Soviet destroyer " Vdokhnovenny " ( D - 429 ) and sent over her whaleboat . The Soviets turned over all of the debris they had collected . The bodies of LTJG Joseph R . Ribar and AT1 Richard E . Sweeney were taken to Japan but those of the other 29 crewmen were not recovered . North Korea publicly announced that it had shot down the plane , claiming it had violated its territorial airspace . The U . S . government acknowledged that it was conducting a search for a missing aircraft but stated that it had explicit orders to remain at least offshore . Of note , 15 April 1969 was the 57th birthday of the North Korean president Kim Il - Sung .