17th July 2015 will mark the first anniversary of the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. 298 passengers and crew died in the tragic incident. The cause of incident is now under investigation, headed by the Netherlands. A full report detailing the cause of the incident will be released in early October 2015, with criminal aspect of identifying those who is responsible of downing the aircraft will be expected to be conducted by a separate team of investigators well into 2016. Some quarters believe that MH17 crash was caused by a missile strike, blaming the criminals that have connection to Russia. While others believe it was caused by Ukrainian Air Force jet fighter, whose government is now backed by the West. Today's blog post will not delve into details or debate about who is the most probable culprit in shooting down the civilian airliner.
Newsweek's 12th September 1983 cover of the KAL007 incident.
There was one similar incident that echoes strongly to MH17. Almost 32 years ago, Korean Air flight 007 (popularly known as KAL007) was en-route from New York to Seoul, South Korea with a fuel stop at Anchorage, Alaska. With it were 269 passengers and crew, with the bulk of passengers being South Koreans and Americans. The plane was reportedly crashed into the Sea of Japan in the darkness of early morning of 1st September 1983, killing all on-board. Investigation into the crash revealed that the aircraft had strayed far off-course from its intended planned flight route, subsequently entering Soviet Union's airspace. At the time, USA and Soviet Union were locked in bitter Cold War distrust. The sudden appearance of the Boeing 747 into the Soviet airspace was immediately considered with alarm and suspicion, suspecting the aircraft as a US spy plane. Two fighter jets were sent to follow KAL007. Communication between the fighter pilots and the pilots of the Boeing 747 was attempted but failed, and warning shots were fired. That too never caused any reaction whatsoever from the pilots of that Boeing 747. The KAL007's fate was finally sealed when it was torpedoed by the fighter jets. Black box recording showed that the aircraft plunged into the sea in 12 terrifying minutes, killing all on-board.
KAL007's actual flight path versus its planned one.
Sources: Asaf Degani, NASA, ICAO
The Boeing 747 was shot out of the sky after being intercepted entering Soviet airspace.
Source: www.rescue007.org
Travelling from Asia to North America during Cold War era was not as straightforward as it is now. Cities such as Anchorage, Alaska became a popular stopover points between cities in North America and Asia because a direct route from, say, Seoul to New York would require a crossing deep into Soviet territory at Siberia. It was not possible at that time because Soviet airspace were largely closed to international civilian air traffic. Crossing the airspace by foreign aircrafts, without permission was deadly, as shown by the KAL007 incident. Since 2000, direct and straightforward airline routes connecting North America, Europe and Asia are now possible. Russia has since open up its airspace, enabling airlines to save fuel cost and travel duration. Below are two screenshots grab I got from FlightRadar24.com, a flight tracking website of two flights, KE81 and KE82. These Seoul-New York return flights currently operates on a daily non-stop schedule, in a post Cold War era.
Figure 1
Figure 1 - 32 years ago, a flight route such as this was not possible. This screen shot grab from FlightRadar24 shows Korean Air Flight 82 from New York's JFK airport to Seoul's Incheon airport. The aircraft crossed eastern Canadian including the length of Hudson Bay, then towards Arctic Ocean near the North Pole and back to crossing the land deep into Russian territory of Siberia. Then, the aircraft briefly crossed Chinese airspace, before landing in Seoul. However, notice that an ideal direct line (in red dash line) would take the aircraft directly above North Korea. The flight completely avoids the latter's airspace, presumably due to the hostile reaction of North Korea's government to foreign aircrafts passing through its airspace.
Figure 2
Figure 2 - The outbound Korean Air Flight 81's route follows closely to supposedly KAL007 flight path, completely avoiding Russian airspace. Nowadays, such flight was undertaken on such route to take advantage of strong tailwind due to prevalent jet stream at high altitude.
Thoughts and condolences to all the families of victims of all ill-fated flights downed by senseless acts of few.
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