U.S. DATA SAID TO CONCLUDE SOVIET MISTOOK KOREAN PLANE NEW YORK TIMES - 24 AUGUST 1986

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100160034-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: August 25, 1986
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160034-7
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160034-7
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160034-7
THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 1986
U.S. Data Said to Conclude
Soviet Mistook Korean Plane
By STEPHEN ENGELBERG
Special to The Now York Times
WASHINGTON, Aug. 22-The South The intercepted information report-
Korean airliner shot down by the Soviet edly showed that Soviet radar opera-
tors had confused the airliner with an
Air Force in 1983 was not on an espio- American plane on an electronic sur-
nage mission, but the Russians, in a veillance mission, that Soviet jet fight-
series of blunders, believed they were ers were unable to find the airliner dur-
attacking an American reconnaissance ing the first of two penetrations of
flight, according to a magazine article. Soviet airspace and that the fighter
iles did not fol-
i
l
ss
m
that fired the fata
low orders to make a visual identifica-
tion before attacking.
A Reason for Confusion
The article quotes intelligence offi-
cials as saying that some of the confu-
sion was understandable in view of the
heavy traffic of American military
reconnaisance flights in the area.
The Information intercepted by the
United States Is said to include record-
ings of phone calls by Sqvlet military
officials and videotapes of Soviet radar
screens.
The article says that the National Se-
The Agency, which has responsibil-
ity for intercepting communications,
recorded a conversation in which a
Soviet military official on the Pacific
coast called Moscow over an open tele-
phone line to ask about shooting down
an American military intruder.
"He was obviously under pressure to
get a decision," the article quotes an
analyst as saying. "He was not going to
shoot down an American aircraft with-
out getting some authorization from
higher headquarters."
After the, Incident, the United States
;accused the Soviet Union of having
deliberately attacked a civilian plane.
President Reagan said in a speech four
days after the incident, "There is no
way a pilot could mistake this for any-
thing other than a civilian airliner."
The article says that American intel-
ligence subsequently found that a suc-
t
intelligence, which has not been made
public, also contradicts the United
States' initial contention that the Soviet
Union had knowingly shot down the
civilian airliner, killing the 269 people
aboard.
The article is drawn from a new book
by Seymour M. Hersh, a journalist who
has reported for The New York Times
on corruption in Panama and on intelli-
gence topics and who uncovered the My
Lai massacre in Vietnam for an inde-
pendent news agency.
Mr. Hersh investigated the South Ko-
next month in The Atlantic Monthly, is
based on a review of American intelli-
gence data and on Interviews with
Soviet officials. It concludes that the
plane penetrated Soviet airspace be-
cause of navigational errors by the Ko-
rean Air Lines crew and not, as the
Soviet Union contended, because it was
ion an espionage mission.
U.S. Intelligence Data Used
The evidence gathered by American
rean airliner incident for two years and
was invited to the Soviet Union in May
1984 for interviews with high officials,
including Marshal Nikolai V. Ogarkov,
tb'.. Chief of the General Staff, and
-orgi M, Korniyenko, then a First
Deputy Foreign Minister.
The Soviet officials told Mr. Hersh
that they were giving him the Soviet
side of the story in the hope that he
would also investigate what they con-
tended was a Central Intelligence
Agency role in the matter.,....
The question of what happened to the
airliner has been a matter of dispute in
the press and in books. Some accounts
contend that the plane was part of an
intelligence operation since it flew over
sensitive Soviet installations.
According to the Atlantic article.
American listening posts intercepted
the initial Soviet communications re-
lated to the airliner's intrusion, but the
information was not analyzed until
hours later, when it was too late to
warn the plane.
cession of Soviet errors had led to lus
such a miscalculation.
The article attributes the straying of
the Korean airliner to mistakes in pro-
gramming its inertial navigation sys-
tem.
The device, which was installed in
.the 1970's, is reliable, but it can be mis-
handled. According to the article,
American investigators sent to South
Korea after the incident learned that
three other K.A.L. flights, from Hono-
lulu, r,Paris and Anchorage, had been
aborted because of misprogrammings.
Quoting from a theory developed by
"Harold H. Ewing, an airline pilot, the
.article says the errors on the ill-fated
airliner could have begun with mis-
taken coding of a single digit in the
IrYnnrdinates needed for navigation.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160034-7
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160034-7
the Soviet Radar Found Faulty
Captain Ewing's account
article
,
says, matches navigational details in
secret United States Government stud-
ies of the plane's flight path. Captain
Ewing, who has flown the route to test
his hypothesis, did not have access to
intelligence data.
As it happened, when the airliner
first mistakenly entered Soviet air-
space over the Kamchatka Peninsula,
an American reconnaisance plane was
in the area hoping to gather data on an
expected Soviet missile launching.
The article says the reconnaissance
flight was part of an intelligence pro.
gram, in which refitted Boeing 707
planes, designated RC-135's, gather te-
lemetry data from missiles while
flying figure eights just outside Soviet
airspace and on the edges of Soviet
radar coverage.
On the night of Aug. 31, the Soviet
missile launching was canceled and the
American reconnaissance plane re-
turned to its base, the article says.
Russians Reported a Linkage
Soviet officials have contended that
the airliner and the reconnalsance
plane flew side by side. But according
to the article, the National Security
Agency found no such evidence.
According to American analysts, the
Soviet commander apparently first
mistook the airliner for a reconnai-
sance flight that would be expected to
remain outside Soviet airspace. For
The article says Soviet radar is not
effective in distinguishing sizes of
planes. In some instances, Soviet
forces have mistakenly attacked Soviet
airliners, the article says. It adds that
the United States appears to be keeping
a better record of Soviet radar tracking
than do the Russians themselves be-
cause the United States routinely
videotapes intercepted Soviet radar in-
formation while the Russians rely on
the memory of operators. The article
says this may explain why the Soviet
Union and United States differ on the
flight path of the airliner at key points.
After having crossed Kamchatka
without being challenged, the airliner
rportedly was picked up again on
Soviet radar screens over the Sea of
Okhotsk as it was heading toward Sa-
kha:in Island, the site of military in-
stallations.
. This time, Soviet fighters were able
to get close, but in the dark, according
to the article, they were still not certain
about.the identity of the plane they had
under surveillance.
In fact, ground controllers asked a
fighter pilot to activate an automatic
system that would show whether the
plane was Soviet. The Boeing 747 has a
similar device identifying it as an
airliner, but that device can be trig-
gered only by ground stations.
this reason, the Russians waited sev-" A Call Is Placed to Moscow
eral minutes to launch interceptors too ' It was during this pursuit over the
late to find the airliner as it crossed I Sea of Okhotsk that a deputy air de.
article says.
A complicating factor, monitored by
the Americans, was that a Soviet radar
post had initially given the interceptor
pilots incorrect coordinates for pursu-
ing the airliner.
There were different American ex-
planations for the Russians' apparent
belief that they were dealing with an
American intelligence plane.
According to the article, officials of
the National Security Agency told Con-
gress in secret briefings that the Rus-
sians had tracked the RC-135 back to its
base and had assumed that the airliner
was part of another American program
aimed at intercepting communica-
tions.
But the United States Air Force's
Electronic Security Command, which
is a military component of National Se-
curity Agency operations, contended I
that Soviet radar operators had been
confused by the proximity of the RC-
135 and believed they were tracking the
same plane into Soviet airspace.
to place a call to Moscow to reach Mar-
shal Aleksandr I. Koldunov, com-
mander in chief of Air Defense Forces,
according to the article.
The officer in Khabarovsk tried three
times to use scrambling equipment be-
fore giving up and speaking in the
clear. As a result, a project of the Na-
tional Security Agency to monitor the
use of the Soviet scrambling equipment
was able to pick up part of the conver-
sation before the scrambler suddenly
became effective.
American intelligence also was said
to have intercepted a message from the
deputy air defense commander in
Khabarovsk reminding a Sakhalin air
base of the rule requiring visual Identi-
fication of an intruder before firing.
Soon afterward, a Soviet fighter pilot
was told by the Sakhalin commanders
to signal with cannon fire and, if this
was unsuccessful, to attack the plane.
"Oh, my God!" ("Yolki palkil") ex-
claimed the pilot, the article says.
No visual Identification had been
made when the missiles flew and the
pilot radioed back his now famous
words: "The target Is destroyed."
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160034-7
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160034-7
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160034-7