Target Is Destroyed | Ocean Crashes | FULL EPISODE | Mayday: Air Disaster

[Music] [Music] [Music] there adjust the headband it's just after two in the morning aboard kal flight zero zero seven green air zero zero seven position over nippy estimating noka one eight two six one three two decimal zero after a brief layover in anchorage a korean airlines 747 is on its way to seoul the marathon flight originated in new york 13 hours ago captain chun byung in has nearly 11 years experience flying for korean airlines before that he served 10 years in the korean air force this leg of the flight is a 6100 kilometer journey over the north pacific [Music] once the plane is in the air there is very little for the pilots to do ladies and gentlemen will soon be serving breakfast before we land in kimbo which will be in about three hours many of the passengers plan to take connecting flights to other destinations after landing in seoul mary jane hendry is heading to japan to start a new life my sister mary jane found a job and she'd gotten hired by this cara company she was exactly the kind of person that they needed for their company in tokyo so she was leaving to embark on this new stage of her career just 15 minutes behind them is the plane's sister flight kal-015 007 go ahead korean air015 what are you doing the flight crews chat to help pass the time we're experiencing an unexpectedly strong tailwind how much of a tail went 35 knots from zero four zero in an effort to conserve fuel the crew decides to take the plane to a higher altitude tokyo center korean air zero zero seven korean air zero zero seven tokyo premier 07 requests climb three five zero roger standby korean air zero zero seven climb and maintain flight level three five zero roger green air zero zero seven climb and maintain flight level three five zero then without warning the plane is out of control rabbit [Music] the crew extends the landing gear in an effort to stop the plane from climbing going is going up speed break is coming out i can't descend this isn't working working enters a normal curve is it rapid decompression hopefully korean error hero zero zero seven unreadable unbeatable radio check on one zero zero four eight standby standby standby korean air 007 tokyo [Music] korean airlines flight 007 and all 269 people on board have vanished korean air 015 would you attempt to contact korean air 007 police and relay position [Music] all efforts to contact the flight have failed tokyo makes calls to other radar stations in japan and korea i cannot contact korean heirs a call is even made to a radar facility in the soviet union relatives nervously await news of the missing flight the company that marijuan was going to work for they apparently had phoned and said mary jane's plane hadn't arrived and that something had perhaps gone wrong with the plane but at that point we didn't really know anything there was concern that it had been either forced to land or crashed or within hours the story began circulating in washington that that the soviets have been involved as the world waits for news about the incident u.s military officials make a horrible discovery at a top-secret surveillance facility they've been monitoring soviet transmissions it appears the unthinkable has happened [Music] at the time of the flight's disappearance u.s soldiers heard what they thought was a routine soviet training mission it doesn't seem possible that the soviets would actually shoot down a passenger plane but american officials have little doubt the next morning u.s secretary of state george schultz delivers an unusually blunt statement the united states reacts with revulsion to this attack loss of life appears to be heavy we can see no excuse whatsoever for this appalling act it couldn't be it just it couldn't be how could they all just perish what do you mean there must have been a reason 1983 is the height of the cold war russia and much of eastern europe are united by communist ideology ruled with an iron fist the soviet union is locked in a bitter political struggle with the west relations were bad but no one really knew how bad how dangerously bad they were initially soviet officials deny responsibility for the kal disaster the story came out of moscow is that the plane appeared we intercepted it tried to make a stop it didn't it flew away that was the first story but soon they reverse course and come clean a soviet fighter jet did in fact shoot the plane down but they insist the attack was justified the soviet view was that it was on a spy mission perhaps carrying instruments cameras uh recorders and so forth the soviet union claims flight zero zero seven entered highly restricted airspace under orders from the u.s government but the u.s insists kal-007 was a routine passenger flight the dispute only heightens political tension in terms of an actual shooting war the the closest points that we may have come were in that year both before and after when both sides particularly the soviet side though was expecting an attack the kl disaster would put nato nuclear disarmament talks in jeopardy the soviets would ultimately walk away the nuclear threat is growing under such circumstances the need for an impartial inquiry is urgent the un calls on the international civil aviation organization aqui offers a neutral investigation an investigation team that can deal with all parties involved in a neutral way kai frostel joins the international team of investigators that will try to uncover the truth behind the destruction of flight zero zero seven with two superpowers squaring off they're under pressure to find answers and find them fast [Music] kal-007's flight plan should have kept it well away from soviet airspace either it was shot down over international waters or the flight had strayed off course figuring out which is the first priority for investigators but they face a huge obstacle the plane's black boxes are still missing the lack of flight recorders data recorder cockpit voice recorder that's significant in an investigation the americans joined forces with south korea and japan in the search for the crucial devices but the three allied nations are not the only ones searching on september 1st we got an order to go to the place where the boeing fell and take part in the search for the boeing 747 it's a race to find the black boxes the americans know they may never get the truth if the soviets find the boxes first each side accuses the other of dirty tricks the us did formally complain that the soviets either sail across u.s ships that they would drop false pingers to to deflect listening devices away from the the true pinger the soviets claim flight zero zero seven was flying in soviet airspace over sacral in ireland when they shot it down if that's true the aircraft was well outside its designated aerial corridor a route known as r20 across the north pacific there are various routes that are labeled that r20 was the one closest to soviet airspace the red route one was a nickname for it it was the one closest so it was known to be or should have been known to be a route that you took extra precautions on investigators get their first hint that if the crew was flying in restricted airspace they didn't know it the corners they were reporting it put them on course the tokyo air traffic controller who last communicated with flight zero zero seven tells investigators that all seemed normal a green air 07 position over nippy estimating noka 1826 132 decimal zero the crew reported they were flying the r20 route but as with every other flight over the pacific zero zero seven was beyond tokyo's radar range the controller could only rely on the pilots to verify their position perhaps they were mistaken about where they were that possibility becomes more likely when investigators talked to the crew of the korean airlines flight that was just minutes behind flight zero zero seven tell me about the exchange with flight zero zero seven the captain of the second flight recounts an odd conversation with the zero zero seven crew we're experiencing an unexpectedly strong tailwind how much of a tailwind 35 knots zero four zero we still have a 15 knot headwind could he be getting a headwind if he was here it would be almost impossible for one flight to have a tailwind and the other a headwind something doesn't add up but with the black box still missing investigators have no way of knowing where kal-007 actually was at the time of that exchange that made it very difficult in the way that we we had no [Music] direct information that i would normally have as an accident investigators frostel gets more information from an unlikely source the us military in a rare move u.s officials share highly classified surveillance data from the night of the shoot-down a top secret technology called passive radar can track the movements of every military and civilian plane around the globe what it reveals about kl007 is stunning the plane was way off course for almost its entire journey across the pacific the flight had been drifting north by the time it was shot down flight 007 was 560 kilometers or 350 miles north of where it should have been and had already flown in and out of soviet territory the soviets were telling the truth and then it becomes a question of determining why was it of course that much to find the answer investigators turned their attention to the navigation system on board the 747 it's called ins the inertial navigation system the ins that was used on this airliner like most in that time period had an accuracy about half a mile of drift per hour very accurate it would get you where you wanted to be the system relies on coordinates or waypoints entered into the flight controller the way it works is that there is nine waypoints that you put in that's the way you program it five nine degrees one eight point zero north waypoints are essentially gps coordinates that also have one word names like bethel neither or nippy flight 007's ins should have been programmed to find and follow those electronic guideposts to seoul perhaps there was some last minute change in the flight plan kai frostel listens to the pre-flight conversation between the crew and the tower in alaska korean air 007 climb and maintain flight level 310. it was total routine from the beginning to the end there was nothing exceptional with the takeoff or the taxing to position the the preparation for the flight after leaving anchorage the 747 flew out over the pacific just as planned but it never made it to the first waypoint instead it drifted off course for more than five hours hope of uncovering the reasons why begins to fade a 10-week effort to recover the flight recorders has turned up nothing the search is called off the actual aircraft where it was and how many pieces it was remained unknown with the investigation stalled frostel turns to the plane's manufacturers the us and boeing offered to simulate the route that we knew korean double 07 had flown we went over to boeing in seattle and then boeing carried out the simulation waypoint number two five nine degrees one eight retracing flight zero zero seven steps in a simulator leaves them with a few possibilities one is that a mistake was made while entering the coordinates into the ins six zero degrees four seven point one north normally the co-pilot would insert the waypoints and the captain would check that the correct digits have been put in six zero degrees for 7.1 north check misprogramming the ins at the gate could have taken the plane over the soviet union okay let's try the flight in heading mode now a second less likely possibility is that after programming the waypoint navigation system the crew may have failed to turn it on after takeoff from anchorage the aircraft would have used a constant magnetic heading to get to the root it's a standard procedure to begin a flight using a magnetic compass heading for direction soon after takeoff pilots must activate the navigation system so it can lock on to the first waypoint and if it was forgotten in that constant magnetic heading it would continue our soviet airspace the magnetic heading would have kept the plane flying in the right direction but along a very different route than the one planned captain chun was a distinguished pilot with years of experience forgetting to switch the autopilot to ins mode would have been an astonishing error at this point frostel can only speculate why flight 007 was off course but what's even harder to understand is why the soviet union would risk starting a war by shooting a plane down the soviets resorted to deadly force to punish this intruder it's like shooting the the paper boy in your front yard at night because you think you might be breaking into your house what could prompt such a response from the soviets investigators get their answer from the u.s military though flight 007 may not have been on a spy mission that night another plane was a u.s air force rc-135 they were tracking an rc 135 which was doing very very slow figure eights off the coast with its own listening devices waiting for a soviet missile test the spy plane was near the soviet border in the path of the kal jetliner when their paths crossed the two planes may have been indistinguishable on soviet radar when 07 came in over soviet airspace the soviet union assumed it's an rc-135 along came this intruder and they just fell into the patterns that they had prepared in advance for such an intruder upon violation of state border approach targeted but disturbing questions remain did the fighter pilot get close enough to see the target with his own eyes did he know it was a passenger jet requests to speak to fighter pilot gennady osipic are refused and for the time being at least those questions are left unanswered in december 1983 less than four months after the disaster iko releases the findings of the investigation though lacking hard evidence the report concludes flight 007 strayed into soviet airspace by accident due to pilot error in operating the navigation system i would almost call it the best guess based on all the work and the factual information we had in 1983. for them to summarize that the plane was there by accident as far as i'm concerned that's not the answers we wanted to hear and we believe that there was further investigation to do the key to this mystery remains locked inside the plane's black boxes which are assumed lost forever beneath the sea [Music] in the months following the kl disaster unidentifiable human remains wash ashore in northern japan small pieces of wreckage are also found investigators have no doubt that the plane was completely destroyed we don't know where their bodies lie there was clothing that washed up on the shore her id washed up on the shore of japan of course getting that id back was at least we had something [Music] like the victims families investigators have no clear idea where flight 007 went down but there are some people who do top soviet officials are hiding the fact that one month after the incident not only did they find the wreckage they also found the all-important black boxes it was a big pile of debris they took down this pile with their bare hands until they found the black boxes there were two of them he but the soviets keep the boxes to themselves the information is kept locked away until nearly 10 years later after the turn of the decade brings a jubilant end to the cold war glasnost ushers in a new spirit of openness in russia [Music] eager to break with the past the new administration in moscow decides to go public the actual unveiling of the data recorders in black boxes was a total surprise and suddenly this new material promised promise some real answers so i knew they're going to tell me something i wanted to have the facts from the tapes and then see how does those facts compare to what we wrote in 1983 in 1992 during official ceremonies in seoul russian leader boris yeltsin hands over the long-awaited flight recorders i was approached by kgb general and he told me that you probably don't know me but i have had the recorders for 10 years i had them in the safe in my office i knew it was a big international secret it bothered me tremendously every day when i came to the office and i looked at my safe and i knew the recorders were there he told me you may not understand that this is the happiest day in my life kai frostel is asked to lead the new team of investigators based in paris and as a clear indication that the times have changed vladimir kaufman a russian avionics expert joins the team a at the time i was working at the civil institute of aviation and was an air crash investigator this was an international investigation of a very high level their first task is to make sure the black boxes are authentic there was a high suspicion in a lot of quarters that the russians or the soviets had tampered with the tapes or had made bogus tapes and so we had to 110 validate the authenticity of the tape they had seals on them they had i remember wax seals on them the photographs were taken the seals were cut investigators confirmed that the cvr handed over by the russians is the same box that was installed on flight zero zero seven they opened them and looked at them and validated the serial numbers validated the model numbers now that they know they have the right boxes investigators need to make sure they have not been tampered with suspicion soon arises during the cleaning process they noted that there had been some breaks in the tape and had been spliced by the russians it is not uncommon for a tape to break during the impact of a crash but distrust of the former soviet union runs deep first they examined these areas of the splices where it had broken and they did that under this high magnification photograph one of the techniques that the french had that i hadn't seen before that wasn't used in the united states was a photo analysis machine they could do this with this optical high magnification they could actually see the magnetic waves the test confirms that no data was added or removed from the cockpit voice recorder when it was spliced together again finally investigators can listen to the tape confident that every word is authentic what it's already time for breakfast what do you know let's see later but all they hear is idol banter from the crew there is not a word on the tape to suggest the crew was on a spy mission just a totally routine conversation and either these guys are the most cold-blooded actors and falsifiers ever or they really were totally clueless about where they were sadly i think the latter's the case it seems unlikely that kal-007 was on a spy mission but it was caught flying over soviet territory investigators have long suspected that the crew either misprogrammed their navigation system or left it in the wrong mode set on constant magnetic heading the flight data recorder finally provides the definitive answer the data revealed that the aircraft was on constant magnetic heading from soon after takeoff from anchorage to to the end there was no deviation whatsoever in the magnetic heading the crew of kal-007 never activated the waypoint navigation system [Music] now passing 500. it seems they simply forgot a basic step in their standard flight procedure the ins was functioning properly had been loaded properly and was counting along the route where it was thought it was supposed to be but the autopilot was not following the ins commands instead it was following a compass mode [Music] so it's only telling them where they're supposed to be investigators learned that even though the plane was following a compass heading and not the waypoints the computer would have continued to display their intended waypoints even though the plane was nowhere near them at green air 0.7 position over nippy estimating nokia 1826 132 decimal 0. this may explain why the crew never noticed their mistake the crew also didn't notice a key indication that they were badly off course we're experiencing an unexpectedly strong tailwind how much of a tailwind 35 knots from zero four zero the fact that they were experiencing completely different weather patterns to a plane supposedly minutes behind them should have alerted them to the problem now there's a point where you see him teetering on the brink of realizing something is horribly wrong he's talking to the pilot behind him and the winds are almost 180 degrees apart and there's a pause and shun is somewhere in his mind as he's a pilot and he has the instinct you know this is odd is it a clue to something i should look into and he doesn't and at that point he might as well pull the gun out and put it to his head it was human error a complacent crew in the middle of the night had their flight computer on the wrong setting and then didn't notice they were straying off course everybody makes mistakes sooner or later good pilots make mistake not so good pilot makes mistakes we're all making mistakes when investigators combine the conversation data from flight zero zero seven with intercepted soviet transmissions they get a detailed picture of what went wrong on september the first 1983 the pilots believed they were on course but three hours into the flight their magnetic heading took them into soviet airspace over kamchatka the soviet military had been tracking a u.s reconnaissance plane was a real american spy plane it was there there were two planes that looked alike when kal penetrated the border the perception was that this was the plane as the passengers sleep through their long journey the soviets scramble fighters to intercept the plane the identity the plane was just not known the clues that it was a loss civilian airliner well might have been there the clues that was 135 didn't add up but the soviets involved didn't have time to think it through target traveling at high speed but the fighters are not fast enough the plane leaves soviet airspace and continues along its heading to seoul they figured that they'd just been been spooked and it was but that was all over unfortunately for everyone involved it wasn't the airliner is just seconds from flying over the island of sakhalin so cyclin was prepared kal flight 007 enters soviet airspace for the second time ladies and gentlemen we'll soon be serving breakfast before we land in kimbo which will be in about three hours target travelling at high speed in approaching borders target is on your heading the lead fighter makes visual contact with flight zero zero seven [Music] give warning burst with cannon but the warning shots go unnoticed take a position [Music] approach target and destroy roger locked on execute as already [Music] target the fighter pilot believed the 747 was an enemy spy plane [Music] it takes nearly a decade after he shot down kal-007 for that pilot to tell his side of the [Music] story investigators have long wondered what major gennady osipovic saw and did after he was ordered to intercept an intruding aircraft in 1983 after nearly 10 years and the collapse of the communist regime he finally tells his side of the story i saw the plane it did look like a civilian plane because there was a flashing light on its tail and one on the top but you can disguise any plane like this you can put a flashing light on and you've got a civilian plane so i did not have any thoughts about this give warning burst with gun when warning shots are fired they usually include tracers which are like flares and are easily seen however osipovic had no tracers loaded in his cannon they're supposed to load tracers just know when they shipped the many for the last six months so they weren't there but even without the tracers osipovic thinks the 747 crew should have seen him as i caught up with him i was flying like this and he was flying like that how could he not turn around and see me i was flying with lights everything was according to protocol he should have seen me and then a horrible coincidence seals the fate of 269 people aboard the flight premier 07 requests climb three five zero korean air zero zero seven climb and maintain flight level three five zero like a car going uphill a climbing plane slows down but to the fighter pilot following the 747 this is interpreted as an evasive he maneuver his speed so that i could either pass him or fall one of the two so that's how i knew that he's an enemy intruder that convinced him that it was not a civilian plane and that he was in danger my only thought was to catch and stop this is what we were trained to do i fell a little behind him and backed down made a snake maneuver put some distance between us because otherwise the rockets would not have locked on he's running out of time because the airliner was approaching international waters take [Music] fires two air-to-air missiles they travel two thousand kilometers an hour towards the jetlag one of them explodes near the tail damaging vital controls and hydraulic lines the warhead also tears a hole in the fuselage causing a rapid decompression in the cabin i saw the first explosion right under the tail and that's it the lights of the trespasser went out and i went home [Music] in the time that they lost pressurization to a certain point indicated that the hole would have been approximately 1.7 square feet the crew managed to fly the crippled plane for several minutes immediately after the missile impact the aircraft climbed to flight level 380. and then it descended about 5000 feet per minute the stricken jetliner plummeted towards the sea of japan with most of its passengers likely still conscious [Music] and that's when the recording stops our determination was that the airframe probably broke up at that point to this day gennady osipovic is convinced he shot down a spy plane [Music] i knew they wouldn't order me to intercept if it was a civilian plane or cargo plane only if it was a trespasser [Music] we were blaming him but some families did they certainly did they said it was his fault and he pressed the button and he shot them down and they were looking to blame somebody [Music] it was clear that he was living with what he had done and what he had done in order for him to live and to sleep was to believe that it was a spy plane there were no passengers on board that he had not killed 269 people and that's the way he wants to believe it and i'm not going to blame him for wanting to believe that in 1993 kai frostel has the evidence that he sorely lacked when he issued his first report he can prove how the korean pilots blundered and ended up off course and how the soviet pilot interpreted the situation the destruction of flight zero zero seven is ruled an accident [Music] frostel recommends that all passenger planes be equipped with a clear indicator that the autopilot is in heading mode the tragedy of double seven is that it didn't have to happen was not inevitable it was a series of accidents a series of misunderstandings a series of uh bad decisions that had been primed ahead of time when my sister mary jane said goodbye to me at the airport she hugged me so so tightly and i said mary jane i feel like i'm never gonna see you again korean double seven has had a great effect on my life it has been close to my heart that has been very sad for me my sympathy and condolences all these years have gone out to the families you

Channel: Mayday: Air Disaster

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Id: zYYqcDUDc44

Length: 45min 48sec (2748 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 16 2021