Korean Air Flight 902 (KAL902, KE902) was the flight number of a civilian airliner shot down by Soviet fighters on April 20, 1978 near Murmansk, killing two passengers. 107 passengers and crew survived after the plane made an emergency landing on a frozen lake. Korean Air (KSE: 003490) is the largest airline based in South Korea. ... An Airbus A340 airliner operated by Air Jamaica An airliner is a large fixed-wing aircraft whose primary function is the transportation of paying passengers. ... April 20 is the 110th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (111th in leap years). ... 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... Murmansk, Archangelsk, Dikson, Tiksi, on the Arctic Ocean Murmansk coin Murmansk (Russian: ) is a city in the extreme northwest of Russia (north of the Arctic circle) with a seaport on the Kola Gulf, 12 km from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from...

The Boeing 707 aircraft (registration HL7429), piloted by Kim Chang Ky, departed from Paris, France on a course to Anchorage, Alaska, where it was intended to refuel and proceed to Seoul, South Korea. The aircraft was not fitted with an inertial navigation system, and the pilots in their navigation calculations used the wrong sign of magnetic declination when converting between magnetic and true headings. This caused the plane to fly in an enormous right-turning arc, which eventually caused the aircraft to fly north from Great Britain towards Iceland, arcing around Scandinavia and towards the Barents Sea into Soviet airspace. Sukhoi Su-15 fighter jets were scrambled. The Boeing 707 is a four engined commercial passenger jet aircraft developed by Boeing in the early 1950s. ... The Eiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... The current version of the article or section reads like an advertisement. ... Seoul is the capital of South Korea and was, until 1945, the capital of all of Korea. ... An inertial navigation system measures the position and altitude of a vehicle by measuring the accelerations and rotations applied to the systems inertial frame. ... The magnetic declination (or magnetic variation) at any point on the earth is a property of the geomagnetic field defined as the angle that must be added or subtracted in converting between two kinds of directional information: the direction of the needle on a magnetic compass located there, and the... Scandinavia is a region in Northern Europe named after the Scandinavian Peninsula. ... Location of the Barents Sea. ... Su-15 The Sukhoi Su-15 (NATO reporting name Flagon) was a twin-engined interceptor aircraft developed by the Soviet Union in the 1960s to replace the Sukhoi Su-11. ...

According to the United States, the fighters were ordered to shoot down the aircraft. Su-15 pilot Capt. A. Boskov attempted for several minutes to cancel this order, reporting that the aircraft was a civilian 707 and not a military RC-135 (which is built on a 707 fuselage). The order was confirmed, and two rockets were fired; one missed, and the other caused heavy damage to part of the left wing and punctured the fuselage, causing rapid decompression and killing two of the 97 passengers. The pilots descended to 5000 feet in clouds and looked for a place to land. The pursuing Su-15 fighter jet lost contact with the airliner, as did Soviet radar. After several unsuccessful approaches, the Korean Air 707 landed on the frozen Korpijärvi Lake on the Finnish border, 250 miles south of Murmansk and 20 miles from the Finland border. The 107 survivors were rescued by Russian helicopters. The RC-135V/W Rivet Joint is a United States Air Force reconnaissance aircraft used to support theater and national level consumers with near real-time on-scene intelligence collection, analysis and dissemination capabilities. ... Explosive decompression (ED) refers to a sudden marked drop in the pressure of a system that occurs in less than 0. ... Murmansk, Archangelsk, Dikson, Tiksi, on the Arctic Ocean Murmansk coin Murmansk (Russian: ) is a city in the extreme northwest of Russia (north of the Arctic circle) with a seaport on the Kola Gulf, 12 km from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from...

The passengers were released, while the crew were held until they made a formal apology. The Soviet Union invoiced Korea for $100,000 in caretaking expenses. The loss of the plane's whereabouts over Soviet territory proved to be an embarrassment to the Soviets and led to internal turmoil within the defense hierarchy.

An almost identical act would be repeated five years later with the downing of Korean Air Flight 007. Korean Air Lines Flight 007, also known as KAL 007 or KE007, was a Korean Air Lines civilian airliner shot down by Soviet jet interceptors on September 1, 1983 just west of Sakhalin island. ...

Sources

• Aviation Safety Network for Korean Air Flight 902

See also

• Lists of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
• Air safety
• Korean Air Flight 007

Citing the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, an aviation accident is defined as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, and in which any person... Air safety is a broad term encompassing the theory, investigation and categorisation of flight failures, and the prevention of such failures through appropriate regulation, as well as through education and training. ... Korean Air Lines Flight 007, also known as KAL 007 or KE007, was a Korean Air Lines civilian airliner shot down by Soviet jet interceptors on September 1, 1983 just west of Sakhalin island. ...

External links

• Korean Airliner Shot Down By Soviets