korean airlines flight shot down by soviet union
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (also known as KAL007 and KE007)[note 2] was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska. On 1 September 1983, the South Korean airliner serving the flight was shot down by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor. The Boeing 747 airliner was en route from Anchorage to Seoul, but deviated from its original planned route and flew through Soviet prohibited airspace about the time of a U.S. aerial reconnaissance mission. The Soviet Air Forces treated the unidentified aircraft as an intruding U.S. spy plane, and proceeded to destroy it with air-to-air missiles, after firing warning shots which were likely not seen by the KAL pilots.[2] The Korean airliner eventually crashed in the sea near Moneron Island west of Sakhalin in the Sea of Japan. All 269 passengers and crew aboard were killed, including Larry McDonald, a Representative from Georgia in the United States House of Representatives. The Soviets found the wreckage under the sea on September 15, and found the flight recorders in October, but this information was kept secret until 1993.
Korean conflict The Korean conflict is based on the division between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north and the Republic of Korea in the south, both of which claim to be the government of the whole country. During the Cold War, North Korea was backed by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist states, and South Korea was backed by the United States and its allies. The division of Korea occurred at the end of World War II in 1945, and tensions erupted into the Korean War in 1950. When the war ended, the country was devastated, but the division remained. North and South Korea continued a military standoff with periodic clashes. The cold civil war survived the collapse of the Eastern Bloc of 1989 to 1991.