On September 1, 1983, Korean Air Lines flight 007, on its way from Anchorage, Alaska to Seoul, Korea, carrying 269 passengers and crew, strayed off
its intended course and entered into Soviet airspace. A Soviet Sukhoi 15 fighter jet, piloted by Major Gennadie Osipovich, was sent up to destroy the
intruding Boeing 747.
The referrenced URLs that speak about the incident including several conspiracies that could possibly have happened and including a malfunction within
the Inertial guidance system:
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
www.kimsoft.com...
aeroweb.lucia.it...
www.rescue007.org...
findarticles.com...
There is a simpler explanation than conspiracy or anything else. This would be called Human Error by the flight crew. Human Error would cause the
flight crew to loose face. In Asia, no one would want the flight crew to loose face. So, the obvious operator error would not even be an issue when
determining the bird (747) straying off course.
What if the bird (747) never strayed but flew correctly? One thing that indicates that this is what happened is the inertial navigation system. If the
nav systen had a problem, it would never come operational and instead indicate a malfunction. An intertial navigation systen has to locate and
position the gyros local verticle. Using the accelerometers it would slew to point to true north. It does this quickly by the magnetic north compass
being accurate and slower if the magnetic north compass is not working properly.
Once the nav systems finds true north, it indicates that it is operational.. At this point, a crewman fat fingers the latitude and longitude into the
destination. In the case of the flight to Seoul, Korea, it would require two destination due to a dog leg around a no fly restricted airspace in
Russia. A top secret military installation that the Russians protect aggressively.
Destination one should be the flight plan to Japan at coordinates Latitude 37 degrees North and Longitude of 140 degress East. The second destination
should be Seoul, Korea using Latitude 37.1 degrees North and 126.58 Longitude East. This will take the Bird out over the Sea of Japan and a 90 degree
right turn East into Seoul, Korea avoiding the restricted airbase in Russia.
However, what if the human error occurred when the coordinates were updated for the dog leg flight plan. What if the destination two (Seoul, Korea)
were entered as destination one. Everything is fine and no one the wiser. The flight officer would need to be checking his other instruments closely
to realize the error that was made caused most instruments to be off from what they should read. I really doubt on a routine flight that after
entering the dog leg into the navigational system and allowing the autopilot to hold course anyone would check.
So, what would happen? The Bird would be on autopilot flying to Seoul without the aid of a dog leg destination. Instead of flying to the Sea of Japan
the bird would be flying straight into Seoul. The restricted airspace and territorial waters of Russia would be encroached upon by the 747. So, the
Korean flight crew would loose face and the Russian base commander capitalizes by making many more bonehead decisions including the downing of the
passenger plane by Russian jets.
The wrong conclusion drawn by the crash investigation team has led to the speculation of conspiracy theories.