@@DCuber196But the CIA's plane just remained unmolested. Anyone thinking that's a bit odd is obviously a twisted conspiracy theorist - probably a "Racist and a White supremacist - on Thurdays. And the red and green "Nav lights" ? Oh our poor old Migs just couldn't catch up with this damn thing- then we "ran out of fuel" !😂 A passenger list - with employment sketch for each - might shed some light on this "unfortunate incident". Was it MH370 - or the one shot down in Ukraine - with corpses on board - contained some top engineers of Freescale semiconductors apart from all else. Patents ownership sort of stuff. These folks heads don't work like "yours and mine".
"Asleep at the wheel" is the phrase that best describes this crew. So many mistakes and failures to pay attention to detail is bordering on criminal negligence. 🌵🌵🌵
I wouldn't say 'bordering on criminal negligence'- I would say 'definite criminal negligence'. How in the world could such an experienced flight crew fail to acknowledge so many signals that things were amiss? Given the various explanations for what happened, I find it impossible to believe that something more sinister wasn't going on. The crew must have been aware of the increasingly aggressive diplomatic tensions between the USA and the USSR. As such, if it were me flying that plane on that particular evening, I would have been constantly making sure my aircraft stayed as far away as possible from USSR airspace. Such an odd, frustrating story! 'Asleep at the wheel' indeed.
My driving instructor advised me that sometimes drivers' mistakes on the road are not because they lack experience, but because they feel they understand everything. I think this advice works for everything.
@@EVG_Channel Dunning Kruger effect is about people who know absolutely nothing act the most confidently. What OP said was about how people who DO know everything tend to get overconfident.
I read a case study a while ago about korean airlines. Korean culture is quite complex and you are never meant never to question your elders or superiors. Which led to 2 or 3 fatal crashes. You have to wonder if it played a role here too.
It's not mentioned in the ICAO report, but it's quite plausible to me, given the Korean accident history, that one of the crew noticed something was wrong, but didn't speak up for fear of being overruled. Sadly we'll never know for sure, but you'd hope that modern CRM training would make such occurrences less likely.
@@GreenDotAviation yeah mate I read about this a long time ago but a non Korean bought the airline for peanuts after several fatal accidents and put that training into effect. AFAIK they have been fine ever since
How badly and critically this flight deviated from its main flight path is horrifying and what’s even worse is that an experienced flight crew was completely unaware of their disastrous error.
I don't believe it, I think they took the direct route to Seoul. What are the odds they would be heading directly to Seoul if they were actually off course? Basically zero, there's no way it was an accidenty.
@@bobbygetsbanned6049 i think this could be the most likely reason but they were on that heading anyway because thats what heading it was to the 2nd becon waypoint they were cleared to, so its hard to know.
Your correct bobby, no one talks about who was on the plane, Richard Helms who was head of the CIA, told Congress in an open forum, what the CIA owned, Korean Air was one of them. @@bobbygetsbanned6049
I remember when this happened and thought it was strange that a commercial airline with the flight number "007" would be shot down for spying. It was a very disturbing event and during a very turbulent and dangerous time.
This was almost 40 years ago. I was a new assistant professor and a very professional and dedicated aviation investigator showed up at my office with a tape of the KAL 007 last transmission to Narita airport in Tokyo. It was HF radio, weak and distorted, but he could have been saying "rapid depressurization." We worked really hard trying to make that voice more intelligible, but we couldn't. But we were able to synchronize this recording with other recordings, such as from Adak US Air Force base in Alaska and from KAL 015. We made a composite tape from these. I hope the investigators, US, ICAO, and/or Russian Federation were helped by our composite tape. Back then there were so many conspiracy theories that I lost track. There were articles and books such as: Pearson, *Kal 007 - The Cover Up* and Brun, *Incident at Sakhalin.* There was even a conference at my University to discuss the various theories. Your video nicely covered the 2 most likely theories as to why this flight was tragically off course.
@@Earthbound369 2 extremes of intelligence displayed here; 1 detailed report from an assistant professor. Very interesting & well researched. The other from an idiot YT troll. Who only knows one word.
Giving the K007 crew the benefit of the doubt, is it possible there was a slow pressure leak that left them bereft of oxygen slowly getting worse over time? And by the time they noticed, it was so bad, that's why they thought it was "rapid" depressurization? Or was that in response to being shot down? I just have a hard time with EVERYONE on the crew being lazy or suicidal. Do you think being mildly hypoxic for a long time might explain what happened? It's just unfortunate we don't have enough evidence to make a sure determination
@@morgan4574 Excuse me for butting in here. I don't think hypoxia is a reason for negligence. Did they have black boxes in 1983? If so, they would record a massive decompression, which would be evidence enough. Also, the CVR would record the pilot's conversations. I don't think anyone is suggesting the crew were suicidal. I've never heard that before! Lazy, unprofessional, & incompetent - yes. Very much so! I read a good article in GEO, (the German equivalent of National Geographic) which was excellent. Apparently the crew were chatting about what they were going to do in Seoul on their 1-2 day stop-over, as pilots do. They were in good spirits. NOT suicidal. The captain had (according to the video) flown this route many times before. Therefore he knew how dangerous it would be to stray in Soviet airspace, & should have been even MORE cautious, not less. The GEO article also gave a good description of the American AWACS (?) spy plane; what they were doing in sneaking over the boundary & flying loops or figure of 8s, then clearing off before the Soviets could scramble a fight interceptor. What the Soviets, to their horror!, saw on the radar screen, was not a stoopid US spy plane doing loops, but a big plane, possibly a bomber (!) heading in a straight line direct for Vladivostok! That's why they panicked on Sakhalin. It wasn't just frustration. They had at all costs to identify this intruder. The article made this clear. I can't remember the journalist's name. Another point mentioned, was that the Soviet fighter (Osipov??) had 2 differing missiles, 1 heat-seeking, & the other magnetic? / radar?? Not sure. Anyway he fired the heat-seeking one, but it missed, so then he fired the other one, which hit. I think if the heat-seeker had hit an engine, it wouldn't necessarily have brought down the plane. However the massive decompression was catastrophic. Speculation, speculation....................
@@boomerang0101 In a strange coincidence, I can answer this for you. If it's the same Les Atlas that started at University of Washington's computer and electrical engineering in 1984, then he's not lying... I've come across him before, but I can't tell you how. Or I guess someone could be pretending to be him, but that's a pretty weird scenario to imagine. Anyway, he's pretty well known in the field and regularly called on for his expertise in signals processing etc. It's not a big pool of experts in that scene.
@@boomerang0101 Whatever loser, Les is a real professor of electrical engineering and has done good work for the folks I work for in the past. You're nothing with nothing to add. I'm just clearing it up for the people who might be wondering, Les Atlas is who he says he is.
My parents were on Flight 15. They talked about it when I was really young. They had interacted with those passengers in the terminal in Anchorage. I’ve always wanted to hear a good breakdown of what happened. Thanks for the great content!!
Wait wtf me too my parents were also on Flight 15 and also talked about it when I was really young and I actually always wanted to hear a good breakdown of it as well, golly talk about a small world.....
@cockmcballs4577let me guess. The jet carries a cia agent who is supposed to be dropping into Soviet territory at the hopes that the reds will identify the airliner and not shoot it down and the captain was supposedly bribed a huge sum of to be feign incompetence?
What you want to see, expect to see, and actually see, depends on varying circumstances. One doesn't actually know, as one was not there. It's all too easy to lay the blame at others otherwise, more so, for those who can no longer speak for themselves ;) RIP all.
Considering how many year’s experience these guys had on this route, I would say “experience laziness” “I know this route so we’ll and done it so many times, I know what I’m doing. I can do it in my sleep” I once heard someone once say “it isn’t the new guys that get hurt or cause errors/mistakes, rather the experienced guys do because they get lazy in their duties
Exactly 💯 correct. Combination of Complacency and laziness egotistical men who think they know it all and cannot be questioned or challenged. To think that we as passengers are putting our lives in these people's hands is frightening 😮 After binge watching these videos I'm developing a fear of ever getting on a plane again.😮
The reason is as your work gets more repetitive, your brain finds it more and more mechanical and switches off without enough breaks. When that happens you can start making easy mistakes. It never becomes less likely to make a careless mistake, only more.
Since their plane was skirting the buffer zone and Soviet air space, there was no room for complacency. I remember reading about a pilot, who was later murdered by his wife, saying that his senses would become the most heightened, when everything felt the safest.
We were stationed @ Anderson AFB in Guam when this happened. Dad was a SAC B-52 radar navigator, the perfect military specimen to fly around with nuclear weapons. He never let on about the stress/pressures he was working under as they were top secret but we went from having him home between alerts (twice a month) to he wasn’t home the next morning when we woke up & was gone for months. Man I wish I could ask Dad about this specific time period, sadly he passed very young at 56.
I am a student Pilot and I was studying for my Instrumentation ATPL exam, and was trying to understand the PFD and Flight mode anunciator panel. I was having a hard time and just decided to take a break and watch a documentary. And you Sir, in your documentary, describe the working principals behind each event so beautifully, I was amazed. Couldn't have come at a better time !!!! Cheers man and thanks !!
Bruh u beat me to it cuz everytime he uploads i look at the runtime...the shorter ones I try to stretch out by rewinding...i mean more than usual since these things are so good i constantly rewind anyway
Just want to say you're my absolute favorite aviation RUclipsr. The suspense you put in your narration combined with the music and visuals are astounding. Keep it up!
Hmm.. quick food for thought... If all plane safety features are perfected, meaning no more crashes, wouldn't that kill this and other channels like this
It seems incredible that when the flight was cleared to BETHEL VOR, the pilots did not fill in the INS with the BETHEL Lat and Long, the use the INS to take them there. It is impossible to cross the Pacific or the Atlantic without cross checking the 3 INS systems at each way point and check any cross track error if you are following SOPs. BETHEL could have been tuned on the on board VORs at as well so that it would register when in range. When flying on an INS track, even and you drift off the track that was inserted a flashing light will warn you that the plane is off track by 10 nm or more. My guess is this: On the older versions of the INS the control switch , after putting in the present position, was kept in ALIGN mode. This switch was on the pilots' panels just above their heads when facing forward. Before starting engines this swich was moved to NAV position for the INS navigation system to function. forgetting to do this would cause all 3 INS to go off. It would take a further 18 minutes to realign the INS's and cause an embarrasing delay. To avoid this the pilots may have put the INS into a mode where theynwould get their Attitude Indicator but no navigation infromation. For an ocean flight this would have been a very unwise decision and the 18 minute delay should have been accepted. Now they would have to fly in HEADING mode and trust to the flight plan winds as being accurate. A huge error,if they were in this condition, would be to not overfly BETHEL VOR and get a positive fix. As they continued the error when flying on HEADING mode increased. In this condition, and knowing that they could enter a Soviet sensitive area with all its dangers, they could have used their weather radar (2 of them) to ange down to pick up the Kamchaka penninsula as the only land that would be near their route. These radars had a range of 300 miles for weather targets and would certainly have picked up land from 100 nm away. They would have had ample time to turn south to avoid Kamchaka. This tragedy was due to gross errors on the part of the aircrew, Contributing to this was the Boeing 747 check list that called for switching off the Logo light on the tail fin after passing 10,000 ft in climb and on again when descending through 10 000 ft. Perhaps seeing the Logo of an airliner might have given the Soviet Air Force pilots a reason to be hesitant to open fire.After this I always kept the logo light on my aircraft all the time in flight. Capt. "Johnny" Sadiq. Flew the 747 -200 for 15 years and was a Chief Pilot and Instructor on the type with 7500 hours in command on that aircraft.
Yes, I did metrology for the USAF and the inertial systems are a lot more involved and hands on than most people assume. They are vastly inferior to modern navigational systems. We still use them in some military applications as a backup to GPS and with modern computers they're self aligned mostly with it but setting up the calibration equipment for the older stuff could be a headache.
If you listen to the interview with the Soviet pilot, Osipovich, he spoke very proudly of this. He mentioned that he could see the double row of windows and knew it was a Boeing, but didn’t care cause he figured it’d be easy to convert a 47 into a military airplane and didn’t relay the message to his superiors. He also said that while he was thinking of how to bring down the airplane, he had to rule out ramming the airplane as it should only be used as a last ditch effort. The guy was unintelligent. I doubt logo lights would have helped his thought process, or lack thereof.
@@logandurham828 What ever the Russian fighter pilot thought was irrelevant. He took his orders from a ground controller who in turn took his orders from an officer of higher rank. If the pilot had seen a logo on the 747s tail, and reported it to control it MIGHT have some reservations about giving the order to shoot. The Russians were influenced to some extent by the US surveillance aircraft in the vicinity. During the Gulf wars all civil aircraft flying at night near the battle zone had to keep their logo lights on.
I'd venture that negligence over the whole trip kind of makes sense. Certain aspects of Korean culture, from my understanding, seem to be focused on not rocking the boat and keeping to appearances. Look at the behavior around the Sewol Ferry disaster. A ferry full of children capsized, and one thing rescuers tried to do was to connect an air hose under the boat to supply them with air while they worked on another plan. The divers were unable to do that, but they claimed that they succeeded because the president was watching. One, or some of the pilots may have done something similar. They may have made a mistake but did not want to announce that for fear of causing trouble and looking bad in front of the other pilots, so they just kept quiet because everything was good up until then.
Saving face culture is absolutely horrible. These kinds of things are bound to happen when it's normalized to ignore or hide problems. My blood was boiling hearing about all the safety checks they missed.
Although, even if that's the case, they could've still fixed their path without telling the other crew. I feel like the pilots should know the dangers of flying into Soviet airspace at the time
It's very obvious that there's a whole lot of hard work goes into researching and producing these videos. The quality of the visuals seems to improve with each new video and your diction is exceptionally clear and easy to understand. If this channel isn't the best aviation channel on RUclips, and it may well be, it's certainly among the best. Great work. Thanks for the video.
@@juliemanarin4127there’s so much more work and talent that goes into a channel like GreenDotAviation than goes into a reaction channel lol hopefully if you ever have to make the decision on where your patronage would go you’ll take factors like this into account
Thanks for such a detailed breakdown of this tragedy. I think the main failure to stay on course was straight-up complacency. These pilots were, IMO, way too relaxed & laid back with a flight plan so near Soviet airspace at that time in history. It is really unbelievable how they missed so many cues...especially when they couldn't reach ATC by radio more than once. For the large loss of life on this flight, it is frustrating to know the pilots were so wrapped up in their own world.
It sure seems like recon mission CAMOUFLAGED as civilian plane. Plus, two planes of the same flight flying 3 minutes away from each other?! Yeah. Boo-hoo!!! 😒🙄🙄 Who still believes in fairytales?
This accident is most likely caused by the airline's absolutely unhinged work ethics that pushed planes with broken instruments with exhausted crews. The korean government had blocked its retired air force pilots from being hired to an airline operating from outside korea. Korean airlines had an absolute monopoly over the vastly experienced and respectable pilots they didn't pay very well. There are many recorded instances of korean airlines flights flying with broken instruments. One of them was also shot down over the arctic, it was a miracle and sheer skill on the pilot's behalf who managed to land the stricken plane on a frozen lake. KAL 902. This accident was also attributed to broken instruments. KAL was that company that simply did not care about its customers or pilots because they had immense monopoly and government backing. Yes, they wouldn't fix instruments just to make more flights and not even provide the pilots a place to sleep. It had to come out of their own pockets. It was restructured in the 2000's and it has been very safe since.
@@mumflurfumperdink2507 This accident was caused by an incompetent and barbaric Soviet air force that has no respect for human life. You can take the fighter pilot out of the Soviet Union....
Moronic take......... Dawg they literally busted airspace twice under the most stressful time of the decade, with active tests and their livelyhoods on the line and knowing the Soviet's it was either stay in the Mil or fucking Gulag @@TheMarlinspike
I love watching these videos and feel so bad for it because of the loss of life but my grandpa who I still live with is an airplane mechanic and owns a small plane so I just spent all new years eve telling him all the high level info about aviation disasters and he knows absolutely everything about everything I bring up, always matching your videos it's so fun to talk with him he's so smart. I used to do flight simulator on late 90s or early 2000s on our computer and I would just crash all the time cuz I suck, but I loved playing and trying
Thank you ❤️ he worked for US airways and quit before they filed bankruptcy and works out of a private owned hanger. One of the private planes that is held there is Michael Jordan's which I find amazing 😂
@@OkkenBomm thank you, he definitely gets excited to discuss his passion and trade with someone who does care and is honestly fascinated you're right! I'll have to ask him more questions when he gets home tonight 😊
I think another important thing bearing consideration is whether the pilots had a history of ignoring intended fly paths for the "shortest possible" route. This has probably already been explored by investigators, but I haven't seen it mentioned before and it might be an indicator as to whether or not this was an uncommon occurrence or not.
It doesn't explain why the captain put more fuel in than was necessary though. A couple of books that discuss this are _'Incident at Sakhalin',_ by Michel Brun and _'1983: the World at the Brink',_ by Taylor Downing. The 'shortest route' assumption would have been way beyond any risk the Korean pilots would have been prepared to take _under normal circumstances._ It would have taken them west of the Kurile Island chain and directly into Soviet airspace.
Unfortunately, doctors also fall into the same Confirmation Biases as some become too desensitized. Once when I was an Aircraft Ground Dispatcher, I made my SOP to time my walkie-talkie clock to the aircraft's chronometer so that I can match my ground handling performance with the published time of the aircraft's onboard digital clock. I notice A330-200 was almost 15 minutes in advance. I alerted the Captain and he simply shrugged his shoulders by looking at his Breitling watch and said "Well I always keep my watch 25 minutes ahead" Surprinsly Co-Pilot who was also wearing the same show-off expensive Breitling had a similar non-aligned time and he too was off-timed! I looked at my reliable & cheap Casio & worked on the published schedule. However, I reported this incident to the base control that there was a possibility of flight delay allocation as the A330-200 cockpit chronometer is incorrect. The aircraft pushed back the ACARS timing came out as per the aircraft's digital clock. I was trying to figure out how to allocate this delay: What evidence do I have other than relaying a message to the base control? Interestingly, after 15 minutes returned back to the stand as the Flight deck crew noticed the malfunctioning of the GPS which was also in conjunction with the chronometer. I went into the cockpit and this time Capating embarrassingly accepted his mistake (Confirmation Bias). The aircraft was fixed and departed with an hour-long delay. However, this time I allocated the delay to the Captain's mistake.
This is a scary encounter! Quite unfortunate for the souls onboard. Pilots are meant to be smart and catch dumb errors like these quickly not unless they intended to fly the wrong course... Sad story
@@everythingpony Soviets shouldn't have been so quick to shoot it down, yeah, but this was the Cold War and they found spy planes flying next to their borders all the time. They should have been able to identify a civilian aircraft yeah but the aircraft was so far off course the Soviets didn't know what to make of this. Blame isn't entirely on the Soviets as the pilots should have known they were so far off course to begin with.
I've known about this incident most of my life but never before have I experienced such a detailed and in-depth account. Incredibly well done and fascinating! Thank You!
That flight 007 strayed way too far off course, even worse still is the fact the crew was completely oblivious to their own flight plan made no correction and remained in the dark until it was too late.
I don’t think any of that was a coincidence! It sure seems like a definite recon mission CAMOUFLAGED as civilian plane. Plus, two planes of the same flight flying 3 minutes away from each other?! Yeah. Boo-hoo!!! 😒🙄🙄 Who still believes in fairytales?
I have seen older videos about this incident, but this video gets in a lot more facts and explanations. Im now astonished that a previous airliner had been shot down belonging to KAL and these pilots in the 747 were so negligent in not knowing their location or failing to verify as per their own procedures, or were trying to take some kind of "short cut".
There is no way they tried to take a shortcut. They knew perfectly well that would take them into Soviet and even North Korean airspace. Add in that it would require not one but three people to conspire to risk their lives... for what? Arriving a couple of minutes early?
Great video. It will be interesting to see your coverage of other commercial airliners unfortunately lost in conflict zones such as Iran Air Flight 655, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752...
God, it was so annoying how foolish these pilots were and how easy it was for them to fix the mistakes that caused disaster. Human negligence is always aggravating
I was a kid when this happened and remember how big of a deal it was. A lot of adults were convinced WW3 was about to pop off. Growing up during that time was strange. Pretty much everyone convinced that at any given moment everything was going to end.
@@HuyNguyen-ll9gzit’s all the same, there’s wars in the 80s, so is present day. Threat of nuclear annihilation is still real in modern day when there is people like Putin and Kim Jong Un who get a little pissed and would bring out the big Nuke stick.
It did almost a month later when the Soviet nuclear early warning system detected five missiles coming from the US that turned out to actually be an error in the Soviet satellites. It was the satellites mistaking reflection off high altitude clouds as nuclear missiles.
My ship was the first US ship to go looking for the black box! I was on the fast frigate USS BADGER FF-1071 and we were heading to Australia when they shot down the Korean airliner!!! We went back to Japan and got some missiles that were nukes and then headed up to Siberia!!! We spent 72 days being chased by Soviet ships the entire time when they could keep up!!! Sure messed up that Westpac but we got a ribbon for it!!! We lost our helicopter during this and a Coast guard ship picked up our pilots!!! That was the coldest place I've been!!!
Honestly it is difficult to blame the Soviets in this instance. Those pilots made so many errors, Cold War tensions were so high, and the RC-135 being where it was just sealed the deal
I'm always so excited when these new videos come out. Me and my girlfriend are big fans and usually watch these during dinner. Keep up the amazing work!
I just found your channel and I gotta say, I’m Addicted lol. I’ve been binge watching all of your videos. Keep up the great work. You got yourself a new subscriber!
The lack of the "sterile cockpit" was also a factor. The pilots were amicably chatting about non-related subjects when they should have been attending to business like checking instruments and settings.
I'd love to know more about the other Korean Air that was shot down and managed to land! And I couldn't agree more with all the other comments about this channel. I'm always so happy when a new informative, suspenseful (but not sensationalized) and thought provoking episode drops. Thank you!
I was just showing my dad the video of the Kazakh and Saudi plane that you made. I was intrigued by why you hadn't uploaded in a while, and somehow in the morning you answered and dropped this video! As always, great quality. Even my dad was amazed by the amazing content you put out here for free!
I believe a great explanation is that they did put the AP in INS mode as they passed BET, but as they were already so off course, the AP never actually switched to INS mode and instead just continued on the "armed" state awaiting the plane to intercept the original route. From my understanding, the plane must be within 1 NM of its course to switch ( at least on more modern planes ). Thus the plane just continued on the heading they originally selected when traveling to BET. The rest is how you described, ignoring sign after sign they were going off course until finally being intercepted.
Yes, this is another possible theory. In fact, the autopilot can take up the course as long as it’s within 7.5nm of the route. So if this is what happened, the pilots were already quite far off course when they engaged INS mode.
@@GreenDotAviationAccording to the video at 9:25, they were 12nm north of the beacon as they passed it. So, if they switched to INS then, they'd have been outside that 7.5nm, and only an increasing distance after. It certainly sounds plausible?
@@bearcubdaycare Exactly. It's definitely plausible, and it would explain them not noticing that the plane was off course, as they would trust that it was following the INS like it had always done. Unfortunately we'll never know for sure.
If you arm the INS mode on the autopilot , you always put the VOR/INS switch to INS (on the front panel) to check what the INS is doing. It will show any off track error if the proper track has been already entered before push back. All they had to do to get on track would be to make a 45 degree interception course to the left in Heading mode until the course indicator centered and then engage autopilot to INS. My theory is that they were flying without the INS working in navigation mode and using Heading mode.
When an AP on the 747-200 is switched INS mode, another switch is put into INS display . This display would instantly show that the plane was off course. If they did not do this it would then be in Nav mode display which (out of range of ground VOR stations) would display a VOR picture with a constantly flicking red flag, showing that it was not getting a VOR nav signal. I think that they forgot to put the INS' in NAV mode when pushing back and would not accept the 18 minute delay needed to re align it ( to "save face.")Then they had to fly in Heading Mode and did not take precautions when doing so.
Awesome. video. yet so sad. Almost mad. So many people had been lost over something that could have been avoided. Looking forward to more of the videos you make. thank you.
Awesome video! Overall it was great but you failed to mention that the US Army spy plane overheard the entire conversation between the USSR pilots, ground control, KAL 007 and KAL 015 and did not say a thing. They let the plane get shot down at the benefit of not giving themselves up.
I was wondering about that. That was probably also a hard decision to digest, knowing that your intervention could have prevented it. I doubt they would have had to run the risk of giving themselves up in any significant way though, they could just fly to international or U.S airspace and pretend they heard it by accident. But they would definitely have had to give up their mission, which given the circumstances was possibly essential to predict soviet hostility and danger of war.
I have to admit that I've never been interested in aviation-like topic and I found Your channel just recently, around 2-3 days ago by RUclips recommendation. I'm so glad I decided to play Your video cuz now I'm kind of addicted to listen all of these stories- and even tho english isn't my mother language I have no problems with undestanding what's going on, thanks to Your explanations. Can't wait for another upload from Ya, once again- thanks a lot and keep going, Youre awesome! :D
It is inconceivable how veteran pilots could have ignored checking their navigation instruments to make sure that they were following the R-70 Ocean Flight track. I can only imagine the horror experienced by the passengers of KAL007. This was a tragedy that could have been averted if the pilots were exercising the due diligence expected of a veteran flight crew.
Your videos are absolutely fantastic. I have zero flight experience, no one in my family or friends have anything to do with planes, but this is truly fantastic work. Great story telling, visuals, everything!
Having watched a few different versions of this story, I like the your choice to layout the narrative and chronicle the mistakes along way rather than splitting them into two chunks and retelling the narrative again and again. That being said, I'm also enjoying your longer format video! Great jorb again!
Very well explained and fascinating . It is true that KAL had an appalling safety record at this time with a military hierarchical gung hoo attitude in the cockpit . Another proposition was that the initial ANC stand coordinates were incorrectly inscribed into the INS systems and therefore could explain the wayward course of the aircraft .
Oldies but goldies for me. I flew many times on NOPAC between Anchorage or Fairbanks and Japan on "classic" 747. Navigation had to be strictly monitored...Good illustrative video .
I'm new to this channel and think this episode is FANTASTIC. The first 20 seconds are GENIUS, incredible, and excellently crafted. Riveting, engaging and attention-grabbing!
Your storytelling skills are top notch. I've watched many of your videos, along with others, and a recurring theme is how a small error can lead to huge consequences. Life lessons, for sure.
I was on the USS Carl Vinson anchored off of Pusan (South Korea) when it happened. There was a Russian Kirov Class that kept bumping a US Fast Frigate in the South China Seas. We had an Emergency Recall and went to the area. The immediate presence of an 1100 foot long, 93,000 ton aircraft carrier calmed things down. It was legitimately almost WWIII.
@mas-udal-hassan9277 1. The ship involved in the downing of Iran Air 655 was USS Vincennes, not USS Carl Vinson. 2. The aircraft involved was an Airbus A300, not a Boeing. 3. They didn't misidentify it as a McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, they misidentified it as a Northrop Grumman F-14 Tomcat. 4. The fatality count wasn't 200, it was 290. Get your facts straight before commenting nonsense.
I would also chime in and tell you, with that kind of content (and the outstanding quality of your videos and storytelling) I am absolutely in favour if longer videos like this one... Please keep up this great work, thanks a lot!
Failing to turn the Auto-pilot knob from Heading to INS after takeoff was something the crew should've noticed. It's not the first time a simple error has led to a disaster. I remember the Summer of '83. I was 16. A close friend of mine in school talked in September and October how sure we were that an impending nuclear war was about to happen. There was a weird feeling in the air that was hard to describe that Summer. We truly dodged a bullet by not going to war. Now once again that feeling has returned except this time the public is distracted and blissfully unaware of the possibiliy of nuclear waronce again. Summer 2023 fourty years after the Summer of 1983. Hopefully we dodge this oncoming bullet.
Yet the US stupidly became their friends just six years later, like this and other events never happened. '89 was really one of the worst years in modern history.
Your videos just keep getting better and better! You have a gift for storytelling and the graphics were great as well. Now I feel I can really understand this accident. Thanks! This might be your best one yet!
Great video! This one has always peaked my curiosity as the INS was the primary navigation method used on these flights. My understanding is that even the most accurate (pre Honeywell GPINS) suffered from drift due to changes in attitude, altitude, and speed coupled with the rotation of the Earth which compounded over time. The above leading to the INS requiring regular updates or "fixes" in the same way an exigent spouse requires reassurance. The method for the fixes (depending on the aircraft type) could be: 1: Visual by directly overflying a landmark on the flightplan and performing an update. 2: Radio using predeterminded VOR/DME aids to determine distance and bearing from the marker, corresponding it with a waypoint on the flightplan, making the appropriate corrections and updating the INS accordingly. 3: Radar (presumably only military terrain mapping radar - not sure on this), again, like visual, setting a waypoint to a distinct terrain feature and performing a manual update as you overfly. Knowing just a little about INS my presumption was that you had to be on it at regular intervals and that the crew had buggered up a calculation on one of the later fixes in the flight. I did not previously know that they basically seemed to have not bothered their holes double checking or verifying anything, it's obvious now that most likely the captain developed a 'shortcut' and due to either familiarity or Korean culture (read - always defer to seniority and never question authority, Confucius has more blood on his hands than the worst dictators combined) and poor CRM no one questioned this. As for the Soviet actions, predictable really. As you stated there had been a previous round of firings. Couple that with the way authoritarian systems operate and the actions were more or less pre-determined. The GCI staff were being ridden like donkeys by their superiors, like the CRM of the airline questioning a superior was a 'no no', this can happen in any organisation/military/department as organisations have distinct cultures, but it is much more likely in cultures where individuality is frowned upon. I saw an interview with the one of the Soviet pilots, not a hint of guilt which is standard for military aircrews as their remoteness from the visceral result of their actions provides a comfortable insulation. It seems the report is the most likely conclusion, they set a heading and kicked back...
1, 2, and 3 are all correct. In particular on point 3, the weather radar on this type of aircraft has a ground mapping mode for checking position. On this route it was something that the crew would normally do just to be extra sure that they really were outside Soviet airspace. On point 2, this is standard procedure, so the crew would have just simply done it, plus all the waypoint checks. They knew where they were.
I remember the day after this happened. I was in my junior year of High School in study hall and all of us were reading that mornings newspaper. It was a huge story and like the narrator says the nuclear threat felt notched up to maximum. Another theory I read was the possibility that the plane may have been moved on the ground while setting up the inertial navigation system. Although that doesn’t explain the pilots lack of following procedures, it can cause the sort of navigation error this flight experienced.
Can you please do a part 2! I love when you get into the immediate aftermath of a crash. I’d love to hear when/how it was realized that it was KAL007 being shot down, crew 15’s realization that 007 went missing, how it was realized that the USSR shot it down, etc
I'm furious because it cost America the last great statesman this country has seen...Congressman Lawrence Patton McDonald (GA). Devoutly anti-communist, and the last man that knew and obeyed the letter of the US Constitution. Others come close, Ron Paul, comes to mind, but Larry Patton was gold. For those interested read _We Hold These Truths_
The russians are way more at fault. The russian pilot said he knew it was not a spy plane but wanted a kill. He was interviewed after the fall of the wall.
Harsh. They simply lost track of time and thought they were safely following the route, accompanied by a pleasant chatter. I can imagine the cozy atmosphere. It's extremely hard to blame anyone in this tragic accident tbh, humans are prone to falling for illusions and pilots are humans, too. And as we learned, the Soviets seemed to also fall for their own illusions and biases (and the pressure from their higher ups who demanded results, sadly). Tragic.
i was crew on a HC-130 Air Rescue aircraft that was the first on scene, we had been directed by orders from the president ( through a general ) to prosecute the search into Soviet airspace. At this time in the early hours of the shootdown it was still classified. We were shocked we knew it was shot down. All we found were seat cushions and odd pieces of wreckage. The whole time we were under threat of shootdown ourselves and discussed over intercom that we might be the start of WW 3. A very surreal experience.
@@FM-ig3th no they did not, but since you asked. Our PJs were ready to jump and were nervous as hell, we had plotted the drift line and it went straight to shore. They knew if they jumped they would most likely end up on Soviet soil at Kamchatka. They would have only jumped on a survivor.
@@reez1728 All nations have a right to defend themselves. But they also have a responsibility to verify that a suspicious plane or ship is actually a threat. Killing nearly 300 innocent people just because they blundered into your airspace is not excusable.
@@DK-gy7ll Did you not see the video or are you acting wilfully blind? They literally sent a spy plane in there to spy on them. Once you're caught doing that one too many times then you hardly have a leg to stand on even when a commercial airliner wanders in. Time and again, the west has shown that it cannot be trusted.
Great video, I heard another rumor based on some radio interception from French radio operator who was doing the morse code transcription, I was myself in the navy at that time. The pilot could have diverted is course on purpose to do a favor for some friend or family member in the US air force, in order to cover the intrusion of the spy plane that had the same signature as the boing 747, hoping that it would confuse the Russian. But we will never know for sure.
Flight 15 was too polite to ask them to check their bearings because they knew something was not right. Flight 7 just blew off warning about the wind direction.
Again excellent, specially displaying the route, waypoints and actual track as well as your narration. Making those videos is like my wife said: I spent so many hours in the kitchen cooking, and you just ate everything in a few minutes 😉
If I remember correctly, this case was in the Supreme Court which declared willful misconduct by the pilots and then the case was dropped due to national security. Something was very wrong.
On the dreadful behaviour of the Soviets, it is worth remembering that in 1988 the USS Vincennes, a brand new Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser with all the latest gear, shot down Iran Air Flight 655 in the middle of the day, after committing a list of errors as long as your arm, while being filmed on the bridge by a US media documentary crew. Tensions were high at this time; in this case the US vessel was in the middle of a military skirmish with Iran. During the 1980s, stupid mistakes were made on both sides by commanders who should have shown calmer heads and better judgement.
So much doesn’t add up! This was a highly monitored airspace not only by the Russians but by the Americans who would 100% been monitoring a way of coarse passenger jet. The US RC-15 spy plane would certainly have been following flight 007 with great interest. Did the Americans let Korean 007 continue its coarse to test the Russians defences and combat response?
You did scrub a lot of the story off. Such as Iran using civilian squawk code to attack US vessels which prompted to US soldiers identifying any plane as hostile until they had confirmation it is a civilian aircraft. Furthermore, the commander was not the one who issued the order but a captain. The captain made the right call, because he was told by navigation officer that an aircraft who represented a military jet with civilian squawk code was descending towards the vessel and based on that information the captain made the call to shoot it down. As far as we know USS Vincennes did contact Iran Flight 655 on international communications but the aircraft ignored all orders to deviate from the path of the US vessel. Furthermore Iran is known for not following ANY international laws, conventions ignored and they are designated as war criminals in a lot of countries. While we do not have the testimony of the crew or passengers for obvious reasons, we cannot blame either party. I will however go into my subjective territory where I will blame the Iran Airforce for using civilian squawk codes for their military jets to destroy US vessels, this was the sole reason why US even considered Iran Flight 655 as a potential threat. It is undeniable that there might be discrepancy of the testimony of the crew aboard the vessel, as apparently the plane was ascending and not descending, while the radar according to the navigation officer on his part showed it was descending. However, the captain and the navigation officer were both awarded with some form of medal, which I cannot recall for their deeds.
I was amazed by the sheer amount of detail you packed into this video. You really brought the story to life, and I felt like I was right there in the cockpit with the pilots. It's definitely a story that will stay with me.
This occurred soon after the new TV channels Channel 4 started. They suggested in a documentary that not only was this a spying mission using civilian aircraft, but that important people had been advised to cancel their seats on this flight.
Really well done, from the careful research and organization, to the play-by-play narrative of the journey and acknowledgements to suppositions past and present through the controversy. Awesome job, and it's no d*** wonder this was going to be a longer vid'... Impeccable work can't be rushed. ...Looking forward to your next! ;o)
Such a big fan of your videos! I've been keeping a close eye out each day for your latest upload and I was buzzing when I was it here tonight! And it didn't disappoint! Love your content and I hope you keep up the great work! Loving the longer videos too! Thanks so much for all the effort you put it!
I used to fly that route in a 747-200, with the same INS system. 1. The route would have been monitored by the Alaskan DEW Line bases at King Salmon, and Galena, as well as Sparavon. A jet aircraft that far off course would have triggered a lot of attention, if not an intercept by American fighters. 2.Add that the RC-135 Would have spotted 007 being off course 3. The standard navigation procedures would have shown a discrepancy just in the fuel burn, which would have gotten the attention of all three pilots. 4. The position reports would have gotten the attention of ATC, as well. 5. Over water, the flight would have been using HF radios for their position reports, with backup frequencies. 6. The flight would have been using a standard transponder code, which the Russians would have spotted; and would have been monitoring as a normally scheduled flight. 7. The flight recorders of KAL 007 were never found. The best speculation was that 007 was prostituted to gain intelligence on the Soviet radio traffic and procedures during an intercept. If so, they got their desired data in extremis. Why, would the Soviets actually shoot down another innocent passenger jet? The best account was that the Soviet commander who ordered the shoot down was drunk. Being stationed in Siberia was essentially punishment; and the Soviets were rather infamous for being alcoholics.
I was in my teens when this happened and a local Los Angeles periodical called the LA Weekly had like an 8 page article about it. Among some of the theories at the time was that the crew was in on flying the route they did. The plan was that they were supposed to "make the navigation mistake" in order to get the Russians to "light up" all of the command and control pathways for the American spy plane to hoover up. I don't remember the authors name but he cited the cozy relationship with the captains military career and the American intelligence apparatus at work in South Korea in detail. The bet was that the interceptor would have done a better VID and not fire. As a GA pilot myself I suppose it's possible to forget the number of crosschecks they did. At the bottom of the report page (37:09) indicating the act was willful, it describes the lack of curiosity that the navaids they were supposed to check were non operational. This is something that would be checked on the ground in a NOTAM as part of flight planning. Complacency with that amount of experience is possible, but the case can also be made that the sheer repetition of that amount of experience would lend itself to realizing that something was missed and needed to be checked, kind of like tying your shoes and one day not putting your finger in the loop. It's something that catches your attention right away. I wish I could find that article but it only goes back to 2016. Either way, great discussion. We do love a good mystery don't we? I do want to say thank you, I appreciate the work and quality Green Dot Aviation put into this. It's my first time here and I'll definitely be back. Cheers!
They fact they were supposed to be off route but were still on a direct route to Seoul tells me it was no accident. If they were truly off course they wouldn't still be heading directly to Seoul, that was intentional. Now was it to light up radar with a passenger jet? I highly doubt it.
Interesting theory. I was only 10 when it happened but I remember it clearly. The Soviets were immediately vilified in the US press, then five years later the US does the same thing to an Iranian airliner.
It may be worth reminding that was also the year of the NATO Able Archer exercise which almost triggered a Russian nuclear attack; the closest we ever were to WW III.
This is really good! But I’d like to point out one time-related error. You used GMT time, which had been replaced by UTC back in 1972. Since 1972, GMT is only a local time zone for London, only for the winter (summer is BST), so London time (GMT/BST) now jumps around based on Daylight Saving Time.
I was stationed in South Korea with the 2nd Infantry Division when 007 was shot down, we were constantly on alert and it was a matter of when not if we were going to war.
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my honest first reaction: ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
What's with the reupload?
Great video. I watched it earlier in a currently unlisted upload, so came here to like again.
@@DCuber196They forgot to bring the monkey along to check position now and then ?
@@DCuber196But the CIA's plane just remained unmolested. Anyone thinking that's a bit odd is obviously a twisted conspiracy theorist - probably a "Racist and a White supremacist - on Thurdays.
And the red and green "Nav lights" ? Oh our poor old Migs just couldn't catch up with this damn thing- then we "ran out of fuel" !😂
A passenger list - with employment sketch for each - might shed some light on this "unfortunate incident".
Was it MH370 - or the one shot down in Ukraine - with corpses on board - contained some top engineers of Freescale semiconductors apart from all else. Patents ownership sort of stuff. These folks heads don't work like "yours and mine".
"Asleep at the wheel" is the phrase that best describes this crew. So many mistakes and failures to pay attention to detail is bordering on criminal negligence. 🌵🌵🌵
single mistake is an accident, two mistakes in a row is stupidity, three and more "mistakes" in a row is intentional
I wouldn't say 'bordering on criminal negligence'- I would say 'definite criminal negligence'.
How in the world could such an experienced flight crew fail to acknowledge so many signals that things were amiss? Given the various explanations for what happened, I find it impossible to believe that something more sinister wasn't going on.
The crew must have been aware of the increasingly aggressive diplomatic tensions between the USA and the USSR. As such, if it were me flying that plane on that particular evening, I would have been constantly making sure my aircraft stayed as far away as possible from USSR airspace.
Such an odd, frustrating story! 'Asleep at the wheel' indeed.
Great video what a tragic loss of life, LORD have Mercy
This came at a time when KAL were losing airframes at what seemed a fairly regular rate. In more recent times it's ceased. Maybe the discovered CRM ?
@@Bobman84 Meaning what, Ivan ?
My driving instructor advised me that sometimes drivers' mistakes on the road are not because they lack experience, but because they feel they understand everything. I think this advice works for everything.
Confirmation bias
@@EVG_Channelnot exactly but sort of I guess…
@@EVG_Channel Dunning Kruger effect is about people who know absolutely nothing act the most confidently. What OP said was about how people who DO know everything tend to get overconfident.
@@EVG_Channel AKA the Trump ignorance.
Yep, it's called becoming complacent...
I read a case study a while ago about korean airlines. Korean culture is quite complex and you are never meant never to question your elders or superiors. Which led to 2 or 3 fatal crashes. You have to wonder if it played a role here too.
It's not mentioned in the ICAO report, but it's quite plausible to me, given the Korean accident history, that one of the crew noticed something was wrong, but didn't speak up for fear of being overruled. Sadly we'll never know for sure, but you'd hope that modern CRM training would make such occurrences less likely.
@@GreenDotAviation yeah mate I read about this a long time ago but a non Korean bought the airline for peanuts after several fatal accidents and put that training into effect. AFAIK they have been fine ever since
That study was in the book outliers I think
@@keitsukishima5808 yes you're right!
@@GreenDotAviation0ac xxx BB me gt 24th ß in 87 ⁸ 2 to look
How badly and critically this flight deviated from its main flight path is horrifying and what’s even worse is that an experienced flight crew was completely unaware of their disastrous error.
I have red “Incident at Sachalin” and I think that “conspiracy theory” explanes pilots “awarness” or a lack of it.
I don't believe it, I think they took the direct route to Seoul. What are the odds they would be heading directly to Seoul if they were actually off course? Basically zero, there's no way it was an accidenty.
@@bobbygetsbanned6049 i think this could be the most likely reason but they were on that heading anyway because thats what heading it was to the 2nd becon waypoint they were cleared to, so its hard to know.
@@bobbygetsbanned6049totally agree
Your correct bobby, no one talks about who was on the plane, Richard Helms who was head of the CIA, told Congress in an
open forum, what the CIA owned, Korean Air was one of them. @@bobbygetsbanned6049
I remember when this happened and thought it was strange that a commercial airline with the flight number "007" would be shot down for spying. It was a very disturbing event and during a very turbulent and dangerous time.
It was in the National Enquirer as a "psychic prediction" before it happened - I read it.
I always heard there was government surveillance equipment on board from a reliable source
@@dan797LMAO. Sure you did.
Hes right, i was the source @The_ZeroLine
If you want to know what REALLY happened, read: James Gollin; Robert Allardyce: "The Tragic Flight of
KAL Flight 007".
This was almost 40 years ago. I was a new assistant professor and a very professional and dedicated aviation investigator showed up at my office with a tape of the KAL 007 last transmission to Narita airport in Tokyo. It was HF radio, weak and distorted, but he could have been saying "rapid depressurization." We worked really hard trying to make that voice more intelligible, but we couldn't. But we were able to synchronize this recording with other recordings, such as from Adak US Air Force base in Alaska and from KAL 015. We made a composite tape from these. I hope the investigators, US, ICAO, and/or Russian Federation were helped by our composite tape. Back then there were so many conspiracy theories that I lost track. There were articles and books such as: Pearson, *Kal 007 - The Cover Up* and Brun, *Incident at Sakhalin.* There was even a conference at my University to discuss the various theories. Your video nicely covered the 2 most likely theories as to why this flight was tragically off course.
@@Earthbound369 2 extremes of intelligence displayed here; 1 detailed report from an assistant professor.
Very interesting & well researched. The other from an idiot YT troll. Who only knows one word.
Giving the K007 crew the benefit of the doubt, is it possible there was a slow pressure leak that left them bereft of oxygen slowly getting worse over time? And by the time they noticed, it was so bad, that's why they thought it was "rapid" depressurization? Or was that in response to being shot down? I just have a hard time with EVERYONE on the crew being lazy or suicidal. Do you think being mildly hypoxic for a long time might explain what happened? It's just unfortunate we don't have enough evidence to make a sure determination
@@morgan4574 Excuse me for butting in here. I don't think hypoxia is a reason for negligence. Did they have black boxes in 1983? If so, they would record a massive decompression, which would be evidence enough.
Also, the CVR would record the pilot's conversations. I don't think anyone is suggesting the crew were suicidal. I've never heard that before! Lazy, unprofessional, & incompetent - yes. Very much so!
I read a good article in GEO, (the German equivalent of National Geographic) which was excellent. Apparently the crew were chatting about what they were going to do in Seoul on their 1-2 day stop-over, as pilots do.
They were in good spirits. NOT suicidal. The captain had (according to the video) flown this route many times before. Therefore he knew how dangerous it would be to stray in Soviet airspace, & should have been even MORE cautious, not less. The GEO article also gave a good description of the American AWACS (?) spy plane; what they were doing in sneaking over the boundary & flying loops or figure of 8s, then clearing off before the Soviets could scramble a fight interceptor. What the Soviets, to their horror!, saw on the radar screen, was not a stoopid US spy plane doing loops, but a big plane, possibly a bomber (!) heading in a straight line direct for Vladivostok! That's why they panicked on Sakhalin. It wasn't just frustration. They had at all costs to identify this intruder. The article made this clear. I can't remember the journalist's name.
Another point mentioned, was that the Soviet fighter (Osipov??) had 2 differing missiles, 1 heat-seeking, & the other magnetic? / radar?? Not sure. Anyway he fired the heat-seeking one, but it missed, so then he fired the other one, which hit. I think if the heat-seeker had hit an engine, it wouldn't necessarily have brought down the plane. However the massive decompression was catastrophic. Speculation, speculation....................
@@boomerang0101
In a strange coincidence, I can answer this for you.
If it's the same Les Atlas that started at University of Washington's computer and electrical engineering in 1984, then he's not lying... I've come across him before, but I can't tell you how.
Or I guess someone could be pretending to be him, but that's a pretty weird scenario to imagine.
Anyway, he's pretty well known in the field and regularly called on for his expertise in signals processing etc. It's not a big pool of experts in that scene.
@@boomerang0101 Whatever loser, Les is a real professor of electrical engineering and has done good work for the folks I work for in the past.
You're nothing with nothing to add. I'm just clearing it up for the people who might be wondering, Les Atlas is who he says he is.
My parents were on Flight 15. They talked about it when I was really young. They had interacted with those passengers in the terminal in Anchorage. I’ve always wanted to hear a good breakdown of what happened. Thanks for the great content!!
how did you parents reacted to KAL 007 being shot down
Then your parents are dead and you are lying
Wow..
Wait wtf me too my parents were also on Flight 15 and also talked about it when I was really young and I actually always wanted to hear a good breakdown of it as well, golly talk about a small world.....
@@charaznable8072 dang what a coincidence
How the crew of flight 007 slept on the job commiting small mistakes and negligence is beyond me.. I feel sorry for the unfortunate souls.
@cockmcballs4577let me guess. The jet carries a cia agent who is supposed to be dropping into Soviet territory at the hopes that the reds will identify the airliner and not shoot it down and the captain was supposedly bribed a huge sum of to be feign incompetence?
It was a spy plane.
What you want to see, expect to see, and actually see, depends on varying circumstances. One doesn't actually know, as one was not there. It's all too easy to lay the blame at others otherwise, more so, for those who can no longer speak for themselves ;) RIP all.
It was the communist Soviets who murdered the crew and passengers, then obfuscated and lied about their hideous crime.
@@Красиваясоветскаядевушкаof course it was.
Considering how many year’s experience these guys had on this route, I would say “experience laziness”
“I know this route so we’ll and done it so many times, I know what I’m doing. I can do it in my sleep”
I once heard someone once say “it isn’t the new guys that get hurt or cause errors/mistakes, rather the experienced guys do because they get lazy in their duties
Exactly 💯 correct. Combination of Complacency and laziness egotistical men who think they know it all and cannot be questioned or challenged. To think that we as passengers are putting our lives in these people's hands is frightening 😮
After binge watching these videos I'm developing a fear of ever getting on a plane again.😮
The reason is as your work gets more repetitive, your brain finds it more and more mechanical and switches off without enough breaks. When that happens you can start making easy mistakes. It never becomes less likely to make a careless mistake, only more.
" complacency"
Since their plane was skirting the buffer zone and Soviet air space, there was no room for complacency. I remember reading about a pilot, who was later murdered by his wife, saying that his senses would become the most heightened, when everything felt the safest.
I agree
We were stationed @ Anderson AFB in Guam when this happened. Dad was a SAC B-52 radar navigator, the perfect military specimen to fly around with nuclear weapons. He never let on about the stress/pressures he was working under as they were top secret but we went from having him home between alerts (twice a month) to he wasn’t home the next morning when we woke up & was gone for months. Man I wish I could ask Dad about this specific time period, sadly he passed very young at 56.
Still might be worth it to ask his colleagues if they are still around and if you are curious enough. Would love to hear that myself
I am a student Pilot and I was studying for my Instrumentation ATPL exam, and was trying to understand the PFD and Flight mode anunciator panel. I was having a hard time and just decided to take a break and watch a documentary. And you Sir, in your documentary, describe the working principals behind each event so beautifully, I was amazed. Couldn't have come at a better time !!!! Cheers man and thanks !!
As a fellow student pilot I’m delighted to hear that 🙏🏼
Wow!! Glad this helped you in your piloting career!!
@@GreenDotAviation I didn't know you were a pilot...wishing you luck and happiness in the skies!
@@juliemanarin4127 Thank you kindly!
@@GreenDotAviationnow that’s dedication to the RUclips channel! Haha!
I can't lie, I love these longer videos
Good to know! I'm thinking of continuing to make the longer ones
@@GreenDotAviation I'll be looking forward to that
@@GreenDotAviationyes, please do 🙏🏽
Bruh u beat me to it cuz everytime he uploads i look at the runtime...the shorter ones I try to stretch out by rewinding...i mean more than usual since these things are so good i constantly rewind anyway
@@GreenDotAviationoh I'm most definitely with that..i play the shorter ones in slow mo to get all i can
Just want to say you're my absolute favorite aviation RUclipsr. The suspense you put in your narration combined with the music and visuals are astounding. Keep it up!
Love to hear this 😊 Glad you're enjoying the videos, much more on the way
@@GreenDotAviation
Sitting there for 10,000 hrs it's a wonder they were ever awake !😅
He's in my top 2 along with Mentour Pilot and i go back and forth on who's my favorite but right now it's my man right here
You may also like another aviation youtube channel called Mentour pilot
Hmm.. quick food for thought...
If all plane safety features are perfected, meaning no more crashes, wouldn't that kill this and other channels like this
Safety is written in blood. Then, now and forever.
Well, you could find a cheaper print I guess, if not for the Russians insisting it this way.
It seems incredible that when the flight was cleared to BETHEL VOR, the pilots did not fill in the INS with the BETHEL Lat and Long, the use the INS to take them there. It is impossible to cross the Pacific or the Atlantic without cross checking the 3 INS systems at each way point and check any cross track error if you are following SOPs. BETHEL could have been tuned on the on board VORs at as well so that it would register when in range. When flying on an INS track, even and you drift off the track that was inserted a flashing light will warn you that the plane is off track by 10 nm or more. My guess is this: On the older versions of the INS the control switch , after putting in the present position, was kept in ALIGN mode. This switch was on the pilots' panels just above their heads when facing forward. Before starting engines this swich was moved to NAV position for the INS navigation system to function. forgetting to do this would cause all 3 INS to go off. It would take a further 18 minutes to realign the INS's and cause an embarrasing delay. To avoid this the pilots may have put the INS into a mode where theynwould get their Attitude Indicator but no navigation infromation. For an ocean flight this would have been a very unwise decision and the 18 minute delay should have been accepted. Now they would have to fly in HEADING mode and trust to the flight plan winds as being accurate. A huge error,if they were in this condition, would be to not overfly BETHEL VOR and get a positive fix. As they continued the error when flying on HEADING mode increased. In this condition, and knowing that they could enter a Soviet sensitive area with all its dangers, they could have used their weather radar (2 of them) to ange down to pick up the Kamchaka penninsula as the only land that would be near their route. These radars had a range of 300 miles for weather targets and would certainly have picked up land from 100 nm away. They would have had ample time to turn south to avoid Kamchaka. This tragedy was due to gross errors on the part of the aircrew, Contributing to this was the Boeing 747 check list that called for switching off the Logo light on the tail fin after passing 10,000 ft in climb and on again when descending through 10 000 ft. Perhaps seeing the Logo of an airliner might have given the Soviet Air Force pilots a reason to be hesitant to open fire.After this I always kept the logo light on my aircraft all the time in flight. Capt. "Johnny" Sadiq. Flew the 747 -200 for 15 years and was a Chief Pilot and Instructor on the type with 7500 hours in command on that aircraft.
Yes, I did metrology for the USAF and the inertial systems are a lot more involved and hands on than most people assume. They are vastly inferior to modern navigational systems. We still use them in some military applications as a backup to GPS and with modern computers they're self aligned mostly with it but setting up the calibration equipment for the older stuff could be a headache.
I thought you had to be a pilot when reading this and you are!
If you listen to the interview with the Soviet pilot, Osipovich, he spoke very proudly of this. He mentioned that he could see the double row of windows and knew it was a Boeing, but didn’t care cause he figured it’d be easy to convert a 47 into a military airplane and didn’t relay the message to his superiors. He also said that while he was thinking of how to bring down the airplane, he had to rule out ramming the airplane as it should only be used as a last ditch effort.
The guy was unintelligent. I doubt logo lights would have helped his thought process, or lack thereof.
@@logandurham828 What ever the Russian fighter pilot thought was irrelevant. He took his orders from a ground controller who in turn took his orders from an officer of higher rank. If the pilot had seen a logo on the 747s tail, and reported it to control it MIGHT have some reservations about giving the order to shoot. The Russians were influenced to some extent by the US surveillance aircraft in the vicinity. During the Gulf wars all civil aircraft flying at night near the battle zone had to keep their logo lights on.
@@Daniela-Christianson Ain't no pulling the wool over Daniela's eyes 👀! Sorry' I just couldn't resist the wee cheeky 'cheap shot' .. 🍻
I'd venture that negligence over the whole trip kind of makes sense. Certain aspects of Korean culture, from my understanding, seem to be focused on not rocking the boat and keeping to appearances. Look at the behavior around the Sewol Ferry disaster. A ferry full of children capsized, and one thing rescuers tried to do was to connect an air hose under the boat to supply them with air while they worked on another plan. The divers were unable to do that, but they claimed that they succeeded because the president was watching. One, or some of the pilots may have done something similar. They may have made a mistake but did not want to announce that for fear of causing trouble and looking bad in front of the other pilots, so they just kept quiet because everything was good up until then.
Saving face culture is absolutely horrible. These kinds of things are bound to happen when it's normalized to ignore or hide problems.
My blood was boiling hearing about all the safety checks they missed.
The Sewol tragedy mimics the cultural norms of KAL007 neatly.
Similar situation to the Korean Cargo plane that crashed after taking off from Stansted, the culture was the issue.
Although, even if that's the case, they could've still fixed their path without telling the other crew. I feel like the pilots should know the dangers of flying into Soviet airspace at the time
Politley say "Excuse me captain the instruments indicate that we are in Russian airspace"
It's very obvious that there's a whole lot of hard work goes into researching and producing these videos. The quality of the visuals seems to improve with each new video and your diction is exceptionally clear and easy to understand. If this channel isn't the best aviation channel on RUclips, and it may well be, it's certainly among the best. Great work. Thanks for the video.
Very kind of you to say 🙏🏼
I have never been a patron member on any channel...even Led Zeppelin reactor channels...who doesn't love Zeppelin right? But I'm considering yours!
@@juliemanarin4127there’s so much more work and talent that goes into a channel like GreenDotAviation than goes into a reaction channel lol hopefully if you ever have to make the decision on where your patronage would go you’ll take factors like this into account
@@GreenDotAviation
Thank you.
May God bless and keep you in your piloting career, and lead you to SALVATION bamp!
Peace be unto you.
Thanks for such a detailed breakdown of this tragedy. I think the main failure to stay on course was straight-up complacency. These pilots were, IMO, way too relaxed & laid back with a flight plan so near Soviet airspace at that time in history. It is really unbelievable how they missed so many cues...especially when they couldn't reach ATC by radio more than once. For the large loss of life on this flight, it is frustrating to know the pilots were so wrapped up in their own world.
Victim blaming, dude go away Russia has always been a pos country
It sure seems like recon mission CAMOUFLAGED as civilian plane.
Plus, two planes of the same flight flying 3 minutes away from each other?!
Yeah. Boo-hoo!!! 😒🙄🙄
Who still believes in fairytales?
This accident is most likely caused by the airline's absolutely unhinged work ethics that pushed planes with broken instruments with exhausted crews.
The korean government had blocked its retired air force pilots from being hired to an airline operating from outside korea. Korean airlines had an absolute monopoly over the vastly experienced and respectable pilots they didn't pay very well.
There are many recorded instances of korean airlines flights flying with broken instruments. One of them was also shot down over the arctic, it was a miracle and sheer skill on the pilot's behalf who managed to land the stricken plane on a frozen lake. KAL 902.
This accident was also attributed to broken instruments.
KAL was that company that simply did not care about its customers or pilots because they had immense monopoly and government backing. Yes, they wouldn't fix instruments just to make more flights and not even provide the pilots a place to sleep. It had to come out of their own pockets.
It was restructured in the 2000's and it has been very safe since.
@@mumflurfumperdink2507 This accident was caused by an incompetent and barbaric Soviet air force that has no respect for human life. You can take the fighter pilot out of the Soviet Union....
Moronic take......... Dawg they literally busted airspace twice under the most stressful time of the decade, with active tests and their livelyhoods on the line and knowing the Soviet's it was either stay in the Mil or fucking Gulag @@TheMarlinspike
I love watching these videos and feel so bad for it because of the loss of life but my grandpa who I still live with is an airplane mechanic and owns a small plane so I just spent all new years eve telling him all the high level info about aviation disasters and he knows absolutely everything about everything I bring up, always matching your videos it's so fun to talk with him he's so smart. I used to do flight simulator on late 90s or early 2000s on our computer and I would just crash all the time cuz I suck, but I loved playing and trying
You have a awesome grandpa
badass grandpa
Thank you ❤️ he worked for US airways and quit before they filed bankruptcy and works out of a private owned hanger. One of the private planes that is held there is Michael Jordan's which I find amazing 😂
Your grandpa most likely loves your conversations
@@OkkenBomm thank you, he definitely gets excited to discuss his passion and trade with someone who does care and is honestly fascinated you're right! I'll have to ask him more questions when he gets home tonight 😊
I think another important thing bearing consideration is whether the pilots had a history of ignoring intended fly paths for the "shortest possible" route.
This has probably already been explored by investigators, but I haven't seen it mentioned before and it might be an indicator as to whether or not this was an uncommon occurrence or not.
It doesn't explain why the captain put more fuel in than was necessary though.
A couple of books that discuss this are _'Incident at Sakhalin',_ by Michel Brun and _'1983: the World at the Brink',_ by Taylor Downing.
The 'shortest route' assumption would have been way beyond any risk the Korean pilots would have been prepared to take _under normal circumstances._ It would have taken them west of the Kurile Island chain and directly into Soviet airspace.
Unfortunately, doctors also fall into the same Confirmation Biases as some become too desensitized.
Once when I was an Aircraft Ground Dispatcher, I made my SOP to time my walkie-talkie clock to the aircraft's chronometer so that I can match my ground handling performance with the published time of the aircraft's onboard digital clock. I notice A330-200 was almost 15 minutes in advance. I alerted the Captain and he simply shrugged his shoulders by looking at his Breitling watch and said "Well I always keep my watch 25 minutes ahead" Surprinsly Co-Pilot who was also wearing the same show-off expensive Breitling had a similar non-aligned time and he too was off-timed! I looked at my reliable & cheap Casio & worked on the published schedule. However, I reported this incident to the base control that there was a possibility of flight delay allocation as the A330-200 cockpit chronometer is incorrect.
The aircraft pushed back the ACARS timing came out as per the aircraft's digital clock. I was trying to figure out how to allocate this delay: What evidence do I have other than relaying a message to the base control? Interestingly, after 15 minutes returned back to the stand as the Flight deck crew noticed the malfunctioning of the GPS which was also in conjunction with the chronometer. I went into the cockpit and this time Capating embarrassingly accepted his mistake (Confirmation Bias). The aircraft was fixed and departed with an hour-long delay. However, this time I allocated the delay to the Captain's mistake.
This is a scary encounter! Quite unfortunate for the souls onboard. Pilots are meant to be smart and catch dumb errors like these quickly not unless they intended to fly the wrong course... Sad story
@drt1605 I am too...I'm in .you 60s. This was a scary time and a terrible tragedy that never should have happened!
It's the Soviets fault for shooting planes
@@everythingponynato doesn’t routinely shoot down Soviet spy aircraft
@@everythingpony Soviets shouldn't have been so quick to shoot it down, yeah, but this was the Cold War and they found spy planes flying next to their borders all the time. They should have been able to identify a civilian aircraft yeah but the aircraft was so far off course the Soviets didn't know what to make of this.
Blame isn't entirely on the Soviets as the pilots should have known they were so far off course to begin with.
Deliberate error under control of the CIA.
I've known about this incident most of my life but never before have I experienced such a detailed and in-depth account. Incredibly well done and fascinating! Thank You!
That flight 007 strayed way too far off course, even worse still is the fact the crew was completely oblivious to their own flight plan made no correction and remained in the dark until it was too late.
I don’t think any of that was a coincidence!
It sure seems like a definite recon mission CAMOUFLAGED as civilian plane.
Plus, two planes of the same flight flying 3 minutes away from each other?!
Yeah. Boo-hoo!!! 😒🙄🙄
Who still believes in fairytales?
I have seen older videos about this incident, but this video gets in a lot more facts and explanations. Im now astonished that a previous airliner had been shot down belonging to KAL and these pilots in the 747 were so negligent in not knowing their location or failing to verify as per their own procedures, or were trying to take some kind of "short cut".
There is no way they tried to take a shortcut. They knew perfectly well that would take them into Soviet and even North Korean airspace. Add in that it would require not one but three people to conspire to risk their lives... for what? Arriving a couple of minutes early?
Great video. It will be interesting to see your coverage of other commercial airliners unfortunately lost in conflict zones such as Iran Air Flight 655, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752...
God, it was so annoying how foolish these pilots were and how easy it was for them to fix the mistakes that caused disaster. Human negligence is always aggravating
I was a kid when this happened and remember how big of a deal it was. A lot of adults were convinced WW3 was about to pop off. Growing up during that time was strange. Pretty much everyone convinced that at any given moment everything was going to end.
It's closer to ending now
@@brianbanks7685How exactly?
@@HuyNguyen-ll9gzit’s all the same, there’s wars in the 80s, so is present day. Threat of nuclear annihilation is still real in modern day when there is people like Putin and Kim Jong Un who get a little pissed and would bring out the big Nuke stick.
You mean like now?
It did almost a month later when the Soviet nuclear early warning system detected five missiles coming from the US that turned out to actually be an error in the Soviet satellites. It was the satellites mistaking reflection off high altitude clouds as nuclear missiles.
My ship was the first US ship to go looking for the black box! I was on the fast frigate USS BADGER FF-1071 and we were heading to Australia when they shot down the Korean airliner!!!
We went back to Japan and got some missiles that were nukes and then headed up to Siberia!!!
We spent 72 days being chased by Soviet ships the entire time when they could keep up!!!
Sure messed up that Westpac but we got a ribbon for it!!!
We lost our helicopter during this and a Coast guard ship picked up our pilots!!!
That was the coldest place I've been!!!
Honestly it is difficult to blame the Soviets in this instance. Those pilots made so many errors, Cold War tensions were so high, and the RC-135 being where it was just sealed the deal
RUclips decided I must be bored of boat-related incidents and aviation accidents are next. They weren't wrong, I've binged almost this entire channel.
What are good channels for boat accidents?
Same
@@taco1010Brick Immortar, Maritime Horrors, Casual Navigation, Big Old Boats
I'm always so excited when these new videos come out. Me and my girlfriend are big fans and usually watch these during dinner. Keep up the amazing work!
Delighted to hear it!
Best Aviation related content I've seen. This channel has made me way more interested in the level of understanding involved in flying an aircraft.
Thanks so much 🙏🏼 Delighted that these videos have made you more interested in aviation :)
@@GreenDotAviation thanks 😊
I just found your channel and I gotta say, I’m Addicted lol. I’ve been binge watching all of your videos. Keep up the great work. You got yourself a new subscriber!
Welcome! Many more videos to come!
The lack of the "sterile cockpit" was also a factor. The pilots were amicably chatting about non-related subjects when they should have been attending to business like checking instruments and settings.
I'd love to know more about the other Korean Air that was shot down and managed to land!
And I couldn't agree more with all the other comments about this channel. I'm always so happy when a new informative, suspenseful (but not sensationalized) and thought provoking episode drops. Thank you!
The plane right behind this one? I don't think it was shot at or is there yet another one?
@@juliemanarin4127 A Korean 707 was shot down earlier in 1978. They managed to land it on a frozen lake
Thank you! I may well cover that at some point. I've looked into it a bit and it's an incredible story.
In case anyone is curious, that plane was Korean Airlines Flight 902: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_902
I was just showing my dad the video of the Kazakh and Saudi plane that you made. I was intrigued by why you hadn't uploaded in a while, and somehow in the morning you answered and dropped this video! As always, great quality. Even my dad was amazed by the amazing content you put out here for free!
I believe a great explanation is that they did put the AP in INS mode as they passed BET, but as they were already so off course, the AP never actually switched to INS mode and instead just continued on the "armed" state awaiting the plane to intercept the original route. From my understanding, the plane must be within 1 NM of its course to switch ( at least on more modern planes ). Thus the plane just continued on the heading they originally selected when traveling to BET. The rest is how you described, ignoring sign after sign they were going off course until finally being intercepted.
Yes, this is another possible theory. In fact, the autopilot can take up the course as long as it’s within 7.5nm of the route. So if this is what happened, the pilots were already quite far off course when they engaged INS mode.
@@GreenDotAviationAccording to the video at 9:25, they were 12nm north of the beacon as they passed it. So, if they switched to INS then, they'd have been outside that 7.5nm, and only an increasing distance after. It certainly sounds plausible?
@@bearcubdaycare Exactly. It's definitely plausible, and it would explain them not noticing that the plane was off course, as they would trust that it was following the INS like it had always done. Unfortunately we'll never know for sure.
If you arm the INS mode on the autopilot , you always put the VOR/INS switch to INS (on the front panel) to check what the INS is doing. It will show any off track error if the proper track has been already entered before push back. All they had to do to get on track would be to make a 45 degree interception course to the left in Heading mode until the course indicator centered and then engage autopilot to INS. My theory is that they were flying without the INS working in navigation mode and using Heading mode.
When an AP on the 747-200 is switched INS mode, another switch is put into INS display . This display would instantly show that the plane was off course. If they did not do this it would then be in Nav mode display which (out of range of ground VOR stations) would display a VOR picture with a constantly flicking red flag, showing that it was not getting a VOR nav signal. I think that they forgot to put the INS' in NAV mode when pushing back and would not accept the 18 minute delay needed to re align it ( to "save face.")Then they had to fly in Heading Mode and did not take precautions when doing so.
Awesome. video. yet so sad. Almost mad. So many people had been lost over something that could have been avoided. Looking forward to more of the videos you make. thank you.
Awesome video! Overall it was great but you failed to mention that the US Army spy plane overheard the entire conversation between the USSR pilots, ground control, KAL 007 and KAL 015 and did not say a thing. They let the plane get shot down at the benefit of not giving themselves up.
I was wondering about that. That was probably also a hard decision to digest, knowing that your intervention could have prevented it.
I doubt they would have had to run the risk of giving themselves up in any significant way though, they could just fly to international or U.S airspace and pretend they heard it by accident. But they would definitely have had to give up their mission, which given the circumstances was possibly essential to predict soviet hostility and danger of war.
Even worse considering the Soviets had already correctly identified their plane, so they wouldn't have compromised much by intervening
Your videos are so informative and detailed. You narrate it in such an phenomenal way. Keep up the good work!
Glad you like them!
I have to admit that I've never been interested in aviation-like topic and I found Your channel just recently, around 2-3 days ago by RUclips recommendation. I'm so glad I decided to play Your video cuz now I'm kind of addicted to listen all of these stories- and even tho english isn't my mother language I have no problems with undestanding what's going on, thanks to Your explanations. Can't wait for another upload from Ya, once again- thanks a lot and keep going, Youre awesome! :D
This was my favourite one to date, absolutely love these videos, especially the longer run time!
Thanks, we put a lot of work into this one so I’m glad it paid off 🙏🏼
It is inconceivable how veteran pilots could have ignored checking their navigation instruments to make sure that they were following the R-70 Ocean Flight track. I can only imagine the horror experienced by the passengers of KAL007. This was a tragedy that could have been averted if the pilots were exercising the due diligence expected of a veteran flight crew.
Your videos are absolutely fantastic. I have zero flight experience, no one in my family or friends have anything to do with planes, but this is truly fantastic work. Great story telling, visuals, everything!
Mate, your explanation of complex terms like Heading Mode & NAV Mode was excellent. A very sad incident though but your video reconstructed it well.
Having watched a few different versions of this story, I like the your choice to layout the narrative and chronicle the mistakes along way rather than splitting them into two chunks and retelling the narrative again and again. That being said, I'm also enjoying your longer format video! Great jorb again!
Thanks! This seemed like the more appropriate format for the story to me
Great jorb
Very well explained and fascinating . It is true that KAL had an appalling safety record at this time with a military hierarchical gung hoo attitude in the cockpit . Another proposition was that the initial ANC stand coordinates were incorrectly inscribed into the INS systems and therefore could explain the wayward course of the aircraft .
Yup that’s the story I’m familiar with -INS was NOT calibrated in Anchorage.
Oldies but goldies for me. I flew many times on NOPAC between Anchorage or Fairbanks and Japan on "classic" 747. Navigation had to be strictly monitored...Good illustrative video .
The 1980s was a hell of a time to be flying on an airplane
I'm new to this channel and think this episode is FANTASTIC. The first 20 seconds are GENIUS, incredible, and excellently crafted. Riveting, engaging and attention-grabbing!
Thanks!
He makes great content!
Agree, it pulled me in nicely
Your storytelling skills are top notch. I've watched many of your videos, along with others, and a recurring theme is how a small error can lead to huge consequences. Life lessons, for sure.
Absolutely, flying can be quite unforgiving. Glad you're enjoying the videos
RIP
To the passengers and crew of Korean Air Lines Flight 007
I was on the USS Carl Vinson anchored off of Pusan (South Korea) when it happened. There was a Russian Kirov Class that kept bumping a US Fast Frigate in the South China Seas. We had an Emergency Recall and went to the area. The immediate presence of an 1100 foot long, 93,000 ton aircraft carrier calmed things down. It was legitimately almost WWIII.
what a US Fast Frigate doing in the SCS?
@mas-udal-hassan9277 1. The ship involved in the downing of Iran Air 655 was USS Vincennes, not USS Carl Vinson.
2. The aircraft involved was an Airbus A300, not a Boeing.
3. They didn't misidentify it as a McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, they misidentified it as a Northrop Grumman F-14 Tomcat.
4. The fatality count wasn't 200, it was 290.
Get your facts straight before commenting nonsense.
Pusan is now renamed Busan. Pusan is old school spelling.
@@Passions I'm old too, so it stays PUSAN! LOL I'm so old, I still use Constantinople.
@@mikemcchesney2555 Constantinople was renamed to Istanbul in 1930! That is pretty cool you can use the internet and type still. Respect!
I would also chime in and tell you, with that kind of content (and the outstanding quality of your videos and storytelling) I am absolutely in favour if longer videos like this one...
Please keep up this great work, thanks a lot!
Failing to turn the Auto-pilot knob from Heading to INS after takeoff was something the crew should've noticed. It's not the first time a simple error has led to a disaster. I remember the Summer of '83. I was 16. A close friend of mine in school talked in September and October how sure we were that an impending nuclear war was about to happen. There was a weird feeling in the air that was hard to describe that Summer. We truly dodged a bullet by not going to war.
Now once again that feeling has returned except this time the public is distracted and blissfully unaware of the possibiliy of nuclear waronce again. Summer 2023 fourty years after the Summer of 1983. Hopefully we dodge this oncoming bullet.
Yet the US stupidly became their friends just six years later, like this and other events never happened. '89 was really one of the worst years in modern history.
Your videos just keep getting better and better! You have a gift for storytelling and the graphics were great as well. Now I feel I can really understand this accident. Thanks! This might be your best one yet!
Thank you! I'm always trying to make these events understandable as they are often either over-simplified or told in a confusing way.
The production quality and storytelling is simply amazing! Love it
Thanks so much! 🙏🏼
Wow, just found this channel, super amazing videos and information!!
Yes! 40 minutes, the sweet spot. I'll look forward to this now for the evening
Great video! This one has always peaked my curiosity as the INS was the primary navigation method used on these flights. My understanding is that even the most accurate (pre Honeywell GPINS) suffered from drift due to changes in attitude, altitude, and speed coupled with the rotation of the Earth which compounded over time. The above leading to the INS requiring regular updates or "fixes" in the same way an exigent spouse requires reassurance. The method for the fixes (depending on the aircraft type) could be:
1: Visual by directly overflying a landmark on the flightplan and performing an update.
2: Radio using predeterminded VOR/DME aids to determine distance and bearing from the marker, corresponding it with a waypoint on the flightplan, making the appropriate corrections and updating the INS accordingly.
3: Radar (presumably only military terrain mapping radar - not sure on this), again, like visual, setting a waypoint to a distinct terrain feature and performing a manual update as you overfly.
Knowing just a little about INS my presumption was that you had to be on it at regular intervals and that the crew had buggered up a calculation on one of the later fixes in the flight. I did not previously know that they basically seemed to have not bothered their holes double checking or verifying anything, it's obvious now that most likely the captain developed a 'shortcut' and due to either familiarity or Korean culture (read - always defer to seniority and never question authority, Confucius has more blood on his hands than the worst dictators combined) and poor CRM no one questioned this.
As for the Soviet actions, predictable really. As you stated there had been a previous round of firings. Couple that with the way authoritarian systems operate and the actions were more or less pre-determined. The GCI staff were being ridden like donkeys by their superiors, like the CRM of the airline questioning a superior was a 'no no', this can happen in any organisation/military/department as organisations have distinct cultures, but it is much more likely in cultures where individuality is frowned upon. I saw an interview with the one of the Soviet pilots, not a hint of guilt which is standard for military aircrews as their remoteness from the visceral result of their actions provides a comfortable insulation. It seems the report is the most likely conclusion, they set a heading and kicked back...
1, 2, and 3 are all correct. In particular on point 3, the weather radar on this type of aircraft has a ground mapping mode for checking position. On this route it was something that the crew would normally do just to be extra sure that they really were outside Soviet airspace. On point 2, this is standard procedure, so the crew would have just simply done it, plus all the waypoint checks. They knew where they were.
I remember the day after this happened. I was in my junior year of High School in study hall and all of us were reading that mornings newspaper. It was a huge story and like the narrator says the nuclear threat felt notched up to maximum.
Another theory I read was the possibility that the plane may have been moved on the ground while setting up the inertial navigation system. Although that doesn’t explain the pilots lack of following procedures, it can cause the sort of navigation error this flight experienced.
Can you please do a part 2! I love when you get into the immediate aftermath of a crash. I’d love to hear when/how it was realized that it was KAL007 being shot down, crew 15’s realization that 007 went missing, how it was realized that the USSR shot it down, etc
Ive been a Mentour Pilot guy for like 2 years, but this is impressive. Keep up the good work
Dude this is such a great, informative video. Absolutely love your longer videos, especially how high quality they are! Keep it up dude!
Thank you!
There just simply can't be a better aviation channel out there!
Mentour Pilot easily ties with Green Dot, I would think
@@alexv3357Mentour is thorough but I find his narration a bit too high-energy. His videos don't have that relaxing documentary quality.
Disaster Breakdown is just as good as Green Dot
@@alexv3357aren't they the same person? Just different channels 😂😂
@@chopsticksforlegs No, different people. Mentour Pilot has an aviation news channel called Mentour Now, which is probably what you're thinking of
This story really infuriates me because the unprofessionalism of these pilots cost the lives of many.
I'm furious because it cost America the last great statesman this country has seen...Congressman Lawrence Patton McDonald (GA). Devoutly anti-communist, and the last man that knew and obeyed the letter of the US Constitution. Others come close, Ron Paul, comes to mind, but Larry Patton was gold. For those interested read _We Hold These Truths_
@@ole5539 Nah Lawrence McDonald, from what I've read, reads like a classic right wing lunatic who gave the country nothing.
The russians are way more at fault. The russian pilot said he knew it was not a spy plane but wanted a kill. He was interviewed after the fall of the wall.
Harsh. They simply lost track of time and thought they were safely following the route, accompanied by a pleasant chatter. I can imagine the cozy atmosphere.
It's extremely hard to blame anyone in this tragic accident tbh, humans are prone to falling for illusions and pilots are humans, too.
And as we learned, the Soviets seemed to also fall for their own illusions and biases (and the pressure from their higher ups who demanded results, sadly).
Tragic.
I agree, such unprofessional pilots should not be given weapons.
Excellent presentation here. Consummate work!
I'm impressed by the quality of these documentaries. Thanks for the video!
i was crew on a HC-130 Air Rescue aircraft that was the first on scene, we had been directed by orders from the president ( through a general ) to prosecute the search into Soviet airspace. At this time in the early hours of the shootdown it was still classified. We were shocked we knew it was shot down. All we found were seat cushions and odd pieces of wreckage. The whole time we were under threat of shootdown ourselves and discussed over intercom that we might be the start of WW 3. A very surreal experience.
Just curious (as was serving with Army Dustoff in those days). Did the Air Force drop PJs in the water/crash site to search for survivors?
@@FM-ig3th no they did not, but since you asked. Our PJs were ready to jump and were nervous as hell, we had plotted the drift line and it went straight to shore. They knew if they jumped they would most likely end up on Soviet soil at Kamchatka. They would have only jumped on a survivor.
@@bluskytooSoviet Union (now Russia) has a right to defend itself.
@@reez1728 All nations have a right to defend themselves. But they also have a responsibility to verify that a suspicious plane or ship is actually a threat. Killing nearly 300 innocent people just because they blundered into your airspace is not excusable.
@@DK-gy7ll Did you not see the video or are you acting wilfully blind? They literally sent a spy plane in there to spy on them. Once you're caught doing that one too many times then you hardly have a leg to stand on even when a commercial airliner wanders in.
Time and again, the west has shown that it cannot be trusted.
Very excited to watch keep up the great work!
Hope you enjoy it! :)
Always love seeing these when they come out. It's very interesting.
Great video, I heard another rumor based on some radio interception from French radio operator who was doing the morse code transcription, I was myself in the navy at that time. The pilot could have diverted is course on purpose to do a favor for some friend or family member in the US air force, in order to cover the intrusion of the spy plane that had the same signature as the boing 747, hoping that it would confuse the Russian. But we will never know for sure.
This is shit you'd think you get by buying it. This channel is absolutely AMAZING. Great editing and storytelling.
Green Dot at it again with the wonderful air crash investigation style videos. Keep it up fine sir!
Thank you, that’s the plan!
Great job and thank you for presenting an objective view on what actually happened.
your channel is one of the best discoveries i've made on this website. brilliant video; i love the longer formats
Thank you! Glad you’re enjoying the videos :)
Woooow !!!! This channel is wonderful, very good edited. Congratulations😮😮😮
Flight 15 was too polite to ask them to check their bearings because they knew something was not right. Flight 7 just blew off warning about the wind direction.
Green dot aviation has become my best aviation channel. Thank you for making such informative videos.
You are very welcome 😊
Again excellent, specially displaying the route, waypoints and actual track as well as your narration.
Making those videos is like my wife said: I spent so many hours in the kitchen cooking, and you just ate everything in a few minutes 😉
Thanks so much, it’s a team effort and it does take a while to cook!
If I remember correctly, this case was in the Supreme Court which declared willful misconduct by the pilots and then the case was dropped due to national security. Something was very wrong.
CIA pressure. They would be exposed. Nobody ever considered this.
treason tweek history , book 4 the kids too. there was a repub right wing on this plain too.
@@timothylines631 The man was Congressman Lawrence Patton McDonald (GA) and he was the best this country has seen in many years, a Democrat.
@ole5539 He was a conservative Democrat that today would be a Republican.
@@avatarwan5824And in Jefferson's time he would have been a Democratic-Republican.
On the dreadful behaviour of the Soviets, it is worth remembering that in 1988 the USS Vincennes, a brand new Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser with all the latest gear, shot down Iran Air Flight 655 in the middle of the day, after committing a list of errors as long as your arm, while being filmed on the bridge by a US media documentary crew. Tensions were high at this time; in this case the US vessel was in the middle of a military skirmish with Iran. During the 1980s, stupid mistakes were made on both sides by commanders who should have shown calmer heads and better judgement.
Soviets were at fault, as usual communism kills the innocent for no reasons
So much doesn’t add up! This was a highly monitored airspace not only by the Russians but by the Americans who would 100% been monitoring a way of coarse passenger jet. The US RC-15 spy plane would certainly have been following flight 007 with great interest. Did the Americans let Korean 007 continue its coarse to test the Russians defences and combat response?
You did scrub a lot of the story off. Such as Iran using civilian squawk code to attack US vessels which prompted to US soldiers identifying any plane as hostile until they had confirmation it is a civilian aircraft. Furthermore, the commander was not the one who issued the order but a captain. The captain made the right call, because he was told by navigation officer that an aircraft who represented a military jet with civilian squawk code was descending towards the vessel and based on that information the captain made the call to shoot it down. As far as we know USS Vincennes did contact Iran Flight 655 on international communications but the aircraft ignored all orders to deviate from the path of the US vessel. Furthermore Iran is known for not following ANY international laws, conventions ignored and they are designated as war criminals in a lot of countries. While we do not have the testimony of the crew or passengers for obvious reasons, we cannot blame either party. I will however go into my subjective territory where I will blame the Iran Airforce for using civilian squawk codes for their military jets to destroy US vessels, this was the sole reason why US even considered Iran Flight 655 as a potential threat. It is undeniable that there might be discrepancy of the testimony of the crew aboard the vessel, as apparently the plane was ascending and not descending, while the radar according to the navigation officer on his part showed it was descending. However, the captain and the navigation officer were both awarded with some form of medal, which I cannot recall for their deeds.
Not REMOTELY the same thing
@@medojed8266this kids is what we call “bias”. Lmao at least try and be impartial
I was amazed by the sheer amount of detail you packed into this video. You really brought the story to life, and I felt like I was right there in the cockpit with the pilots. It's definitely a story that will stay with me.
Even though there are tens of channels that focus on doing basically the same, this guy's videos are the best. 10/10
Largely worthed waiting for this! Congratulations!!!
Much appreciated!
Credit to the effort you put into these videos dude. Respect 🙏
Thank you!
You demonstrated your brilliance in this video explaining every detail God rest their souls thank you for sharing 🙏🙏🙏
This occurred soon after the new TV channels Channel 4 started. They suggested in a documentary that not only was this a spying mission using civilian aircraft, but that important people had been advised to cancel their seats on this flight.
Really well done, from the careful research and organization, to the play-by-play narrative of the journey and acknowledgements to suppositions past and present through the controversy. Awesome job, and it's no d*** wonder this was going to be a longer vid'... Impeccable work can't be rushed.
...Looking forward to your next! ;o)
Thanks for the kind words 🙏🏼 more research always pays off :)
@@GreenDotAviation Always welcome. Where good work is worthy, praise MUST be provided. Thank YOU for all the effort and care. ;o)
@GreenDotAviation yes so much research goes into these videos!
Such a big fan of your videos! I've been keeping a close eye out each day for your latest upload and I was buzzing when I was it here tonight! And it didn't disappoint! Love your content and I hope you keep up the great work! Loving the longer videos too! Thanks so much for all the effort you put it!
I’m delighted you’re enjoying them so much! More on the way ✈️
These well detailed videos (which I missed) are nostalgic. It's like looking at an HD picture instead of a low definition picture.
I used to fly that route in a 747-200, with the same INS system.
1. The route would have been monitored by the Alaskan DEW Line bases at King Salmon, and Galena, as well as Sparavon. A jet aircraft that far off course would have triggered a lot of attention, if not an intercept by American fighters.
2.Add that the RC-135 Would have spotted 007 being off course
3. The standard navigation procedures would have shown a discrepancy just in the fuel burn, which would have gotten the attention of all three pilots.
4. The position reports would have gotten the attention of ATC, as well.
5. Over water, the flight would have been using HF radios for their position reports, with backup frequencies.
6. The flight would have been using a standard transponder code, which the Russians would have spotted; and would have been monitoring as a normally scheduled flight.
7. The flight recorders of KAL 007 were never found.
The best speculation was that 007 was prostituted to gain intelligence on the Soviet radio traffic and procedures during an intercept. If so, they got their desired data in extremis. Why, would the Soviets actually shoot down another innocent passenger jet? The best account was that the Soviet commander who ordered the shoot down was drunk. Being stationed in Siberia was essentially punishment; and the Soviets were rather infamous for being alcoholics.
I was in my teens when this happened and a local Los Angeles periodical called the LA Weekly had like an 8 page article about it. Among some of the theories at the time was that the crew was in on flying the route they did. The plan was that they were supposed to "make the navigation mistake" in order to get the Russians to "light up" all of the command and control pathways for the American spy plane to hoover up. I don't remember the authors name but he cited the cozy relationship with the captains military career and the American intelligence apparatus at work in South Korea in detail. The bet was that the interceptor would have done a better VID and not fire.
As a GA pilot myself I suppose it's possible to forget the number of crosschecks they did. At the bottom of the report page (37:09) indicating the act was willful, it describes the lack of curiosity that the navaids they were supposed to check were non operational. This is something that would be checked on the ground in a NOTAM as part of flight planning. Complacency with that amount of experience is possible, but the case can also be made that the sheer repetition of that amount of experience would lend itself to realizing that something was missed and needed to be checked, kind of like tying your shoes and one day not putting your finger in the loop. It's something that catches your attention right away. I wish I could find that article but it only goes back to 2016. Either way, great discussion. We do love a good mystery don't we?
I do want to say thank you, I appreciate the work and quality Green Dot Aviation put into this. It's my first time here and I'll definitely be back. Cheers!
They fact they were supposed to be off route but were still on a direct route to Seoul tells me it was no accident. If they were truly off course they wouldn't still be heading directly to Seoul, that was intentional. Now was it to light up radar with a passenger jet? I highly doubt it.
Interesting theory. I was only 10 when it happened but I remember it clearly. The Soviets were immediately vilified in the US press, then five years later the US does the same thing to an Iranian airliner.
It may be worth reminding that was also the year of the NATO Able Archer exercise which almost triggered a Russian nuclear attack; the closest we ever were to WW III.
This is really good! But I’d like to point out one time-related error. You used GMT time, which had been replaced by UTC back in 1972. Since 1972, GMT is only a local time zone for London, only for the winter (summer is BST), so London time (GMT/BST) now jumps around based on Daylight Saving Time.
Thanks for this correction! Something to incorporate into my future videos
I just found this channel! Awesome job!
I was stationed in South Korea with the 2nd Infantry Division when 007 was shot down, we were constantly on alert and it was a matter of when not if we were going to war.
Great story telling, I really enjoyed this video! Keep it up
Glad you enjoyed it! Much more to come :)