What a fine lot of pantywaists avoiding responsibility: the ship was "not operating under Navy authority" but under "Spook Command".
Quite the Liberty deja vu all over again.
And that little matter of Pearl Harbor--blame the guy who showed up for the Japs' treachery and FDR's flatfoot useful idiocy.
And to send the crew baseball scores instead of the PDRK invasion raid--priceless.
This is the donut mentality that turned its back on Speicher--who may or may not be alive, no thanks to "command".
Oh and Johnson would "do anything"--he'd sacrifice our people with his target list "sanitization" to spare embarrassing Ho Chi Minh or offending Mao, so of course he wasn't about to offend Kim Il Sung Chia Prick the Elder.
Now when it came to buying votes of color, five, six trillion, no price (in your dollars) is too high.
It's the premier nut house of the globe, North Korea, where ax murderers wear uniforms and women must eat bark so Chia Prick has Mickey Mouse tee-shirts and comfort comrades.
So send a twenty-two-year-old barge into hell and harm's way with zero repeat zero cover.
Oh, but Kim Il Sung's winged monkeys will respect the international limit--just as Hong Fat wouldn't dream of flying into Vegomatic number one on our EP-3C.
And again the crew can't destroy the secret stuff fast enough--
Our friend who was charged with PDRK order of battle 1956-7 said the plane should have been put down--but that it was night and there were women--hence ChiComs got our stuff.
And why does our intel continue to suffer?
Because Tenet's CIA remains the political hackshop traitorrapist42 set up.
Because the minority on Senate Select Intel isn't seeking better product--only better gotcha against their main enemy, not Osama or Saddam but President Bush 43.
Speaking of Korea, KAL 007 went down in 83 with a US congressman on board Larry MacDonald.
I asked our friend about that, and he and his wife knew some of the principals.
I emailed Reed Irvine of Accuracy In Media and he called and we talked at some length.
Radar showed the airliner descended smoothly, not in some catastrophic dive.
Only shoes, no bodies were recovered.
Hence, the hypothesis that it took the MiG's missile without breaking up, splashed intact, passengers offloaded, fuselage towed and sunk.
Irvine explained a new book was being released, and wouldn't you know it, none of the media came to the press conference.
When Commies succeed, the universe is humming along fine, hence, it's not news.
One of many perplexing details that raise questions about what really happened to KAL 007 after the attack is that the jetliner remained airborne for at least 12 minutes. During a press briefing on the morning of September 1, 1983, Secretary of State George Shultz told reporters: "At 1826 hours the Soviet pilot reported that he fired a missile and the target was destroyed. At 1830 hours the Korean aircraft was reported by radar at 5,000 meters [16,400 feet]. At 1838 hours the Korean plane disappeared from the radar screen."
To date, no one has adequately explained how a jetliner supposedly blownup and hurtling out of control toward the sea would take at least 12 minutes to fall 35,000 feet. For comparison, consider this Associated Press dispatch as printed by Deseret News (Salt Lake City) for February 20, 1985: "A China Airlines jumbo jet fell 32,000 feet in less than two minutes Tuesday [February 19th] after all four of its engines failed but the pilot restarted them and flew 500 miles with a damaged tail before making an emergency landing here [San Francisco], authorities said .... The Boeing 747 ... fell from a cruising altitude of 41,000 feet to 9,000 feet, said ... a spokesman at San Francisco International Airport." The plane fell 32,000 feet in something less than two minutes. Let us be conservative (and keep the arithmetic simple) by assuming that it was exactly two minutes, in which case the rate of descent would have been 267 feet per second. Had KAL 007 "plummeted" toward the sea at that rate, its fall would have taken about two minutes and 11 seconds -- not 12 minutes.
It is important to note that its disappearance from the radar screen by no means meant that KAL 007 had crashed. It could have remained airborne thereafter until it either landed or ran out of fuel. Newsweek for September 12, 1983 reported that the plane went off radar while it was still 5,000 feet in the air. And R. W. Johnson asserts in Shootdown that it "went off the Wakkanai radar at 1000 feet."
In any event, KAL 007 remained aloft for at least 12 minutes after the attack, which is near-conclusive evidence that the crew was at least partially in control of the aircraft. Otherwise, the descent would have been far more precipitous.
Another remarkable aspect of the descent is that it appears to have been carried out according to standard procedure for an aircraft that has suffered an engine loss and decompression, but is still being controlled by the crew. A precipitous initial descent (between 4,000 and 7,000 feet per minute, depending on weather conditions and the structural condition of the aircraft) is intended to quickly reach a level where there is adequate oxygen and a warmer temperature. Thereafter, the rate is reduced as the pilot signals for assistance, seeks a place to land, makes his position known to potential rescuers, etc. The available data indicates that the Captain of KAL 007 followed that procedure.
This is the book Reed Irvine told me about.
Rescue 007: The Untold Story of KAL 007 and Its Survivors By Bert Schlossberg
They Tried to Destroy the Passenger Plane...
“The target is destroyed,” so said Major Gennadie Osipovich as he launched two Anab medium range air-to-air missiles in the direction of the Korean Airlines Boeing 747 flying over Russia’s Sakhalin Island carrying 269 unsuspecting passengers and crew. It was August 31, 1983.
“Not so!” said Russian General Kornukov and Lt. Col. Gerasimenko as they watched KAL 007 on their radar screen slowly descend in search of a favorable landing site.
Gerasimenko: “Turning left, right, apparently. . . it’s descending.”
Kornukov: “’Destroy it, use the [MiG] 23, destroy it,’ I said!”
“Not so!” said Lt. Col. Novoseletski, Smirnykh Air Base Chief of Staff as he first realized that KAL 007 had indeed survived.
Novoseletski: “What is happening, what is the matter, who guided him in, he locked on, why didn’t he shoot it down?”
“Not so!” says General Kornukov again when, three minutes after the missile attack, he is informed by Major Osipovich’s ground controller that not only has the airliner not been downed, it is also able to negotiate turns.
Kornukov: “I do not understand the result, why is the target flying? [obscenities], well, what is happening?”
“Not so!” says Lt. Col. Novoseletski again at twelve minutes after the attack as he futilely tries again to bring down the huge Korean passenger plane.
Novoseletski: “Get it! Get it! Go ahead, bring in the MiG 23.”
Ground Controller: “Roger. The MiG 23 is in the area. It is descending to 5000 [meters]. The order has been given. Destroy upon detection.”
And, “Not so!” say Lt. Col. Novoseletski, 21 minutes after the strike, and General Strogov, the Deputy Commander of the Soviet Far East Military District, 29 minutes after, as they order rescue missions to be sent to tiny Moneron Island (4 1/2 miles long, 3 miles wide), where the jet liner has just ditched.
Novoseletski: “Prepare whatever helicopters there are. Rescue helicopters.”
Ground Controller: “Rescue?”
Novoseletski: “Yes.”
...
Ground Controller: “The border guards and KGB are at Khornutovo.
Strogov: “The border guards. What ships do we now have near Moneron Island? If they are civilian, send [them] there immediately.”
Ground Controller: “Understood, Comrade General.”
In the early morning hours of August 31, 1983, a single Soviet Interceptor sent a missile in the direction of a Korean Airlines 747 jumbo jet carrying 269 passengers and crew on a flight from Anchorage, Alaska to Seoul, Korea.
For years, it was believed that the "target" was "destroyed", as reported seconds after the attack. In a dramatic turn of events, evidence surfaced (some quite literally from the bottom of the sea) proving that KAL 007 had indeed ditched successfully off the shores of tiny Moneron Island, and that the passengers and crew were rescued to be held captive in the former Soviet Union. Here, in this book, are the unparalleled transcripts and chronicling of the whole Soviet hierarchy from the Commander of the Far East Military District down to Major Osipovich squeezing the trigger. Here are the high level, and sometimes vehement, interchanges that resulted in both the shooting down and the ordering of rescue missions involving KGB patrol boats, helicopters, and civilian trawlers around Moneron. And, here finally, is the evidence we need to bring our people home. Senator Jesse Helms to Boris Yeltsin-December 10, 1991:
"The KAL-007 tragedy was one of the most tense incidents of the entire Cold War. . . Please provide a detailed list of the camps containing live passengers and crew, together with a map showing their location."
This air emergency, then, is probably the most dramatic and fully documented flight-gone-wrong ever.
The 747-200B was originally known as the 747B. It was a modification of the original 747, which was first flown on April 11, 1969. Even before the first production 747s rolled off the line, the upgraded 747B was announced in June 1968. The 747Bs were later called 747-200Bs and the original production model the 747-100. Subsequent modifications became the 747-300 and the 747-400. Boeing also manufactured a 747-200F (Freighter), 747-200C (Convertible from freight to passengers) and a 747-200M ("Combi" combination passenger and freight) as well as the 747-SP (Special Performance).
Boeing model numbers are a combination of the aircraft series number and a designation for the airline contracting for construction. The number for Lufthansa is 30; therefore, this plane is designated as a Boeing 747-230B since it was manufactured for Lufthansa originally.
Above is a photo of the plane as D-ABYH (Condor Airlines) before purchased and flown as HL7442 (Korean Airlines).
