The USSR shot down a South Korean plane. Soviet fighter shot down the Korean "Boeing": how it was

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website Turning 30 next year greatest tragedy in Russian-Korean modern history.

We can safely predict the aggravation of anti-Russian ultra-right sentiments in South Korea, therefore, we recall without technical details about the tragic events of September 1, 1983. This story gave rise to many mysteries, so far not a single body has been found, although everyone has thoroughly searched.

What they wrote and said then:

Soviet media version. On September 2, 1983, a strange report was published about an unidentified aircraft flying into Soviet airspace. The Su-15 fighter-interceptors raised on alarm drove him out and he retired towards the Sea of Japan.
Soviet media version. On September 4, the newspapers condemned the propaganda hype raised in the West in connection with the allegedly downed by Soviet fighters Boeing 747-230B passenger plane belonging to the South Korean airline Korean Air and performing regular flight from New York to Seoul. A map of the route is published, and it is conjectured that the plane was on a spy mission.
Soviet media version. On September 8, regret is expressed for the loss of life. The fact that there was a tragic mistake and the Soviet air defense took the passenger plane for a reconnaissance aircraft was immediately known to the leadership of the USSR, but no one wanted to substitute the military and the responsibility was placed on the United States. A program of disinformation of the world community began, which caused the largest international scandal.

What happened then:

On September 1 at 3:00 local time, the Boeing 747 took off from Anchorage and headed for Seoul. The flight route was supposed to go around the territory of the USSR to the east of Kamchatka. However, almost from the very beginning of the flight, the plane began to deviate from the intended course.
At the same time, an American reconnaissance aircraft PC-135 was in the air, which for some time approached the Boeing. Radar observation data presented later by the Soviet side showed that the Boeing at a certain point in time approached the PC-135 reconnaissance aircraft so much that the marks on the radar screens merged. After that, one aircraft headed deep into the territory of the USSR, and the other along a route close to the international air route. Soviet air defense radar stations flew the Boeing 747 like an American reconnaissance aircraft, aided by the similar size and design of the aircraft.

The plane passed over Kamchatka, flew over Sakhalin, and was not allowed to fly to Vladivostok.
At 6:26 local time, Lieutenant Colonel Osipovich received an order from the commander of the Far Eastern Military District, General Tretyak, and fired two missiles at the silhouette of an aircraft flying near the very edge of the clouds. One of the rockets flew past, the other exploded near the tail of the liner, damaging the control systems. After 12 minutes, the Boeing falls into the waters of the Tatar Strait, taking with it the lives of 269 passengers and crew members.

According to an investigation by the International Organization civil aviation(ICAO), most probable cause 500 kilometers off-course was that the South Korean Boeing pilots misconfigured the autopilot and then did not perform proper checks to correct the current position. That is a violation airspace The USSR was unintentional.

Find out the true background of the events that took place exactly thirty years ago in the night sky over Sakhalin and Sea of Okhotsk, is also not easy, how to prove and confirm the truth of the American landings on the moon. In both cases, behind the seeming simplicity and irrefutability of the version stubbornly promoted by the West, something completely different looms...

Meanwhile, it is necessary to understand, despite all the obvious inconsistencies. After all, the incident of 1983 became a convenient pretext for Washington and its allies to unleash another paranoid-hysterical campaign against the USSR, and contributed to the rallying of the anti-communist bloc. President Ronald Reagan found another reason to confirm his earlier thesis about the USSR as an "evil empire" - a term he borrowed from the film "Star Wars". Part of the Soviet elite was so frightened by the Western propaganda attack that two years later they voted with both hands for the coming to power of the favorite of our geopolitical rivals, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Once again, it makes no sense to talk in detail about the events of September 1983: the number of newspaper publications about the downed South Korean Boeing in our country is in the thousands, books have been written and films made about it. Let me just remind you that the most important accusation against us is the disproportionate use of force against a civilian airliner of the South Korean airline Korian Airlines, which was flying on the first day of autumn 1983, flight 007 New York - Anchorage - Seoul, as a result of which 269 passengers died and crew members.

But to this day, many facts work against the Western version of the "peaceful aircraft." This is a significant deviation of the Boeing from the flight route of more than five hundred kilometers, which began almost immediately after takeoff from Anchorage.

In response, we are told that the pilots simply made a mistake. But how many cases do you know when passenger aircraft with experienced pilots who had flown this route more than once or twice before, gone so far to the side?

And for what reason the American management services air traffic did not warn the Korean pilots that they were flying on the wrong course?

There is still no clear answer to the question of why the “new” route of flight 007 ran over Kamchatka, the Kuriles and Sakhalin - in other words, areas that were and still are of strategic importance for the defense of our country. Again they object: what kind of information could a civilian aircraft collect, if everything is already visible from satellites. Well, firstly, not everything is noticeable from orbit through the veil of the earth's atmosphere, even now. And, secondly, one of the possible goals of a possible invasion of our airspace was to collect data on the organization of Soviet air defense systems, which were forced to work on the intruder.

Another question that has not received a clear answer from the West is the synchronization of the flight of the South Korean aircraft with the American Ferret-D reconnaissance satellite and the American spy plane.

In addition, the incident occurred against the backdrop of ongoing provocations in 1983 by Washington, which became insolent to the point that it even authorized imitation of bombing on one of our military airfields in the Kuriles.

And the main question to which there is no answer: how could the pilots of Corian Airlines not see the Soviet military aircraft that was next to them, which indicated its presence with both swaying wings and warning fire. Moreover, they also tried to leave, taking a higher echelon.

Suspicions are even more intensified when you find out that back in April 1978, another Corian Airlines flight 902, en route from Paris to Seoul through the same Anchorage, also “got lost” and, probably, quite by accident appeared in the sky above our other the most important area - the Kola Peninsula. He was forced to land, after going through the formalities, the passengers were released, the pilots were not punished, but expelled from the Soviet Union. This is a fairly well-known fact, but few of us know that in 1992 one of the reputable South Korean magazines published an article that contained the confession of the captain of that same Korian Airlines flight in connection with the CIA. It was on the eve of Boris Yeltsin's trip to Seoul, when he handed over the "black boxes" of flight 007 - perhaps no one suggested to him that, in connection with the above-mentioned publication, it was advisable to postpone such a ceremony for a more detailed study of the issue.

The presence of special services is also very strongly felt in the incident over Sakhalin. Boeing commander Jung Byung-in was once the personal pilot of the South Korean ruler Pak Chung-hee.

Working with the first persons of the state implies a mandatory procedure for passing an audit through the special services, or rather, long-term cooperation with them. However, both then and today, South Korean intelligence cannot be completely independent in its actions - it is in the same team with the Americans. But that's not all. The influential South Korean newspaper Joseon Ilbo then published a message about the landing of the allegedly downed Boeing on Sakhalin, citing CIA data. But it is not customary to spread about such cooperation of journalists with special services, and even foreign ones.

There is also a statement posted on the Internet by an American whose father, a career intelligence officer, did not board flight 007 just ten minutes before departure - on the advice of his colleagues. But the most surprising thing is the writings of Western "writers" who talk about the fact that in fact the Boeing was not shot down, but was only forced to land on the territory of the island administrative-territorial unit of the USSR. To the question about future fate passengers are given a simple answer: they are kept in the Gulag, because special "secret" camps are still preserved on the territory of Siberia. Cases of phone calls to relatives made by those who should have died thirty years ago are cited as "evidence". For example, an engineer who was working on electronic systems on board a Korean airliner unexpectedly called his mother, but only had time to report that everything was fine with him, after which he immediately hung up. There were also reports that Boeing passengers were often met by their acquaintances, but the “resurrected” pretended that they had misunderstood.

This means that the version of "informed sources" that in fact, instead of a passenger Boeing, an American reconnaissance aircraft similar to it was shot down has a right to exist. The liner was landed at an American military base in Japan, and all passengers were given new identity cards and a good monetary compensation while ordering them to remain silent. If so, then the Westerners are well aware that sooner or later the awl will come out of the bag, and then a huge scandal is inevitable. To avoid it, fables about the "active Gulag" were launched.

In favor of the fact that the Boeing incident was well orchestrated, several other similar cases dated the same 1983 speak.
The most resonant is the attempt on the life of South Korean dictator-president Chung Doo-hwan during his visit to Burma in early October, which was called in Japanese and South Korean sources as the "Incident at the Tomb of Aung San." Let me briefly remind you: Chung Doo Hwan, according to the protocol, was supposed to visit the mausoleum in honor of the founder of independent Burma in the capital of this state. The president, for some unknown reason, was late, having sent his ambassador to this country to the place of the ceremony in advance. However, there was an explosion near the mausoleum that claimed the lives of about thirty people, including the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Energy. Judging by a photo taken minutes before the incident, representatives of South Korea's top political establishment were lined up waiting for their boss.

After the incident, the Burmese military caught two allegedly North Korean agents, who, as part of a sabotage group, allegedly staged this terrorist act. It seems that everything converges, up to material evidence, there are also captured performers. But why until now no one has bothered to clearly explain the reason for Chung Doo-hwan being late to the memorial cemetery, to explain how North Korean agents could penetrate the territory of the tomb, which was guarded by about two hundred guards of the South Korean president, not counting the Burmese security forces, and set two mines there great explosive power. And why the North Korean merchant ship, from which the group of saboteurs allegedly landed, was from October 4 to October 11 in the port of Colombo, that is, far from the scene of the incident. And why would Chung Doo-hwan, upon his return to Seoul, not remove either the head of the intelligence service or the head of his own security from their posts. Yes, presumably North Korean agents were caught, but who can guarantee that these are not South Korean intelligence officers who were tasked with impersonating "brothers" from the North? However, the photos of these people so far no one has published. And there was no reason for the North Koreans to "run into" a scandal that resulted in a break in diplomatic relations with Burma, a country with which trade was very profitable for both Pyongyang and Rangoon. Now, decades later, these two countries are again drawn to each other like magnets, on the basis of anti-Western sentiment. However, a year before, the South Koreans claimed that they wanted to kill their leader - it is clear who - in Canada. It already looks like paranoia.

An even more mysterious incident occurred in August of the same 1983, when the South Korean warship Kangwon allegedly sank a high-speed North Korean reconnaissance ship in the Sea of Japan. More precisely, this was done by a helicopter taking off from the ship with an ACC-12 missile, which, according to the South Koreans, is designed to fire at ground targets. Strangely, there is no information about the successful use of ACC-12 in the Sea of Japan anywhere else, except in South Korean sources. There are also different versions of what happened. According to one of them, the South Koreans stepped onto the deck of the wrecked ship, according to another, it simply sank, and again not a single photograph. But as evidence, a helicopter was put on public display, the fuselage of which was decorated with the sign of the destroyed enemy warship. "Strong" evidence, of course.

I believe that in the case of the Boeing, the Americans pursued not only the goal of finding out the details of the functioning of the Soviet air defense system, but also wanted to prevent Seoul from rapprochement with Moscow.

The South Korean dictator, General Pak Chung-hee (president of the country in 1963-1979), apparently, was very burdened by his total dependence on Washington. Therefore, as far as possible, he was looking for "exits" to Moscow. One of the first signs is gratitude to the Soviet leadership for the quick resolution of the issue with the passengers and crew of flight 902, which, I note, was done in the absence of diplomatic relations. This line was continued under the next military ruler Chung Doo Hwan, when South Korean walkers, who also had American or Japanese citizenship, after receiving a visa, visited our foreign affairs department to persuade us to improve relations with Seoul. After the incident with the Boeing, these visits to the Foreign Ministry ended, South Korea a wave of anti-Soviet hysteria swept over ...

Finding out the true background of the events that took place exactly thirty years ago in the night sky over Sakhalin and the Sea of Okhotsk is as difficult as proving and confirming the truth of the American moon landings. In both cases, behind the seeming simplicity and irrefutability of the version stubbornly promoted by the West, something completely different looms...

Once again, it makes no sense to talk in detail about the events of September 1983: the number of newspaper publications about the downed South Korean Boeing in our country is in the thousands, books have been written and films made about it. Let me just remind you that the most important accusation against us is the disproportionate use of force against a civilian airliner of the South Korean airline Korian Airlines, flying on the first day of autumn 1983, flight 007 New York - Anchorage - Seoul, as a result of which 269 passengers died and crew members.

In response, we are told that the pilots simply made a mistake. But how many cases does history know when passenger planes with experienced pilots, who had previously flown this route more than once or twice, went so far to the side?

And why didn't the American air traffic control warn the Korean pilots that they were flying on the wrong course?

Another question that has not received a clear answer from the West is the synchronization of the flight of a South Korean aircraft with the American Ferret-D reconnaissance satellite and an American spy plane.

The presence of special services is also very strongly felt in the incident over Sakhalin. Boeing commander Jung Byung-in was once the personal pilot of the South Korean ruler Pak Chung-hee.

There is also a statement posted on the Internet by an American whose father, a career intelligence officer, did not board flight 007 just ten minutes before departure - on the advice of his colleagues. But the most surprising thing is the writings of Western "writers" who talk about the fact that in fact the Boeing was not shot down, but was only forced to land on the territory of the island administrative-territorial unit of the USSR. To the question about the further fate of the passengers, a simple answer is given: they are kept in the Gulag, because special “secret” camps are still preserved on the territory of Siberia. Cases of phone calls to relatives made by those who should have died thirty years ago are cited as "evidence". For example, an engineer who was working on electronic systems on board a Korean airliner unexpectedly called his mother, but only had time to report that everything was fine with him, after which he immediately hung up. There were also reports that Boeing passengers were often met by their acquaintances, but the “resurrected” pretended that they had misunderstood.

This means that the version of "informed sources" that in fact, instead of a passenger Boeing, an American reconnaissance aircraft similar to it was shot down has a right to exist. The liner was landed at an American military base in Japan, and all passengers were given new identity cards and good monetary compensation, while being ordered to remain silent. If so, then the Westerners are well aware that sooner or later the awl will come out of the bag, and then a huge scandal is inevitable. To avoid it, fables about the "active Gulag" were launched.

In favor of the fact that the Boeing incident was well orchestrated, several other similar cases dated the same 1983 speak.

The most resonant is the attempt on the life of South Korean dictator-president Chung Doo-hwan during his visit to Burma in early October, which was called in Japanese and South Korean sources as the "Incident at the Tomb of Aung San." Let me briefly remind you: Chung Doo Hwan, according to the protocol, was supposed to visit the mausoleum in honor of the founder of independent Burma in the capital of this state. The president, for some unknown reason, was late, having sent his ambassador to this country to the place of the ceremony in advance. However, there was an explosion near the mausoleum that claimed the lives of about thirty people, including the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Energy. Judging by a photo taken minutes before the incident, representatives of South Korea's top political establishment were lined up waiting for their boss.

The South Korean dictator, General Pak Chung-hee (president of the country in 1963-1979), apparently, was very burdened by his total dependence on Washington. Therefore, as far as possible, he was looking for "exits" to Moscow. One of the first signs is gratitude to the Soviet leadership for the quick resolution of the issue with the passengers and crew of flight 902, which, I note, was done in the absence of diplomatic relations. This line was continued under the next military ruler Chung Doo Hwan, when South Korean walkers, who also had American or Japanese citizenship, after receiving a visa, visited our foreign affairs department to persuade us to improve relations with Seoul. After the incident with the Boeing, these visits to the Foreign Ministry ended, a wave of anti-Soviet hysteria swept over South Korea ...

Special for the Centenary

In the 1970s and 1980s, the air defenses of the Soviet Union from all strategic directions were tested by NATO combat and reconnaissance aircraft. A particularly intense confrontation took place in the Far Eastern Military District. In September 1983, the air defense aviation of the Far Eastern Military District shot down a Boeing-707 of South Korean airlines. A huge international scandal erupted. The US President at that time, Ronald Reagan, called the USSR the "Evil Empire". Anatoly Kornukov, General of the Army, Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force of the Russian Federation (1998-2002), Honorary Chairman of the Air Defense Coordinating Committee of the CIS countries, told our freelance correspondent about this military operation.

A group of journalists from the central media in the late 90s of the last century flew by helicopter to one of the Air Force training grounds in the Tver region. Very effectively, Russian bomber and attack aircraft smashed old armored vehicles and fortifications of the “probable enemy” to smithereens. One of the journalists, in addition to other questions, also asked the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force, General of the Army Anatoly Kornukov, about the long-standing tragic history over Sakhalin. Somehow Anatoly Mikhailovich squinted at our colleague and replied that he would not want to stir up this tragedy again: and most importantly, they still hush up the truth. And now, 29 years later, Wings of the Motherland reveal the details of the tragedy over Sakhalin.

THE WORLD SHAKED IN OUTRAGE

On the night of August 31 to September 1, 1983, a South Korean Boeing flight 007 New York - Anchorage - Seoul was shot down over Sakhalin. The American media announces the horrific murder of 269 people, including US citizens. Among the dead was the most active anti-Soviet congressman Larry McDonald. Thousands of demonstrations swept from Washington to Japan and South Korea demanding decisive action against the USSR. US President Ronald Reagan said that the Soviets pursue their interests through violence and threats, using lies to cover up such a heinous act. He declared the USSR an "evil empire". Shocked citizens of South Korea collectively burn the flags of the Soviet Union. A period has come when the Cold War in the world could break into a nuclear catastrophe.

HALF A YEAR BEFORE THE TRAGEDY OVER SAKHALIN

At the end of March 1983, two strike aircraft carrier groups of the US Navy, as Army General Anatoly Kornukov said, appeared in the Aleutian Islands near Soviet Kamchatka. They held multi-day exercises. From the two strike aircraft carriers "Eagle" and "Enterprise", located to the south Japanese island Hokkaido, took off on April 4 b aircraft A-7. Near Zeleny Malaya Island Kuril ridge they entered the airspace of the USSR to a depth of about 30 kilometers. Moreover, they carried out conditional bombing on the territory of the island, making several visits to attack ground targets, and left with impunity. Due to very bad weather, the commander of the 40th Fighter Aviation Division of the Far Eastern Air Force, Major General Anatoly Kornukov, did not dare to raise Soviet aircraft to intercept the intruders. In addition, the fighters based on Sakhalin would not have enough fuel to return to the airfield during an air battle in the South Kuriles. “Of course, they could scare the Americans,” said Army General Anatoly Kornukov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force in 1998-2001, “only in this case our pilots would have died without a fight. The fighters had no landing systems. There were none at the nearest airfield to that area either. And our planes did not reach Sakhalin. Therefore, I decided not to take the fighters into the air to intercept the intruders. For this act, I was severely punished by the leaders of the Ministry of Defense.

The Kremlin did not like the caution of the Far Eastern aviation general. A superpower must be firm in defending its air borders. Moreover, at that time the law on the state border of the USSR had already entered into force. Article 36 read: "The air defense troops, protecting the state border of the USSR in cases where the termination of the violation or the detention of violators cannot be carried out by other means, use weapons and military equipment."

After the provocation of the Americans over the Zeleny Island, the command set the task of reappearing American military aircraft over the South Kuril Islands engage in air combat with them. And then, on the remainder of the fuel, pull to the nearest land and eject. “The Americans were engaged in provocations,” General of the Army Anatoly Kornukov recalled those events, “but for us it’s a complete mess. We carried out our tasks literally on the verge of opening real fire to kill. For example, when 6th american fleet entered the Sea of Japan with a large aircraft carrier strike group and arranged aviation flights over the sea, then our command decided to raise a division of naval missile carriers into the air. My fighter division provided cover for the missile carriers in one area, and the 20th division, based in Primorye, escorted these aircraft. And so the American and Soviet air armada converged in a small and narrow airspace over Sea of Japan. The indescribable was happening on the air: “Cover! I'm attacking!" Boasted, of course. There was no shooting from both sides. It's a miracle that there were no mid-air collisions between planes. After all, this could lead to their fall. And it could well be that someone could not stand it and open fire to kill. Such an incident is unclear how could end. A nervous and difficult environment passed for us on Far East 1983 Literally every day, the US Air Force staged provocations in the air against us.

STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE VS. SOVIETS

The Pentagon has always paid close attention to electronic intelligence. RS-135 reconnaissance aircraft, Ferret spy satellites and other means continuously probed vast spaces in search of Soviet Troops air defense of the country. Violations of the air borders of the USSR were carried out so boldly that each time they could provoke the outbreak of hostilities. Moreover, the violators often responded with fire to the signals of Soviet fighters on duty. In 1952, passengers of a Soviet aircraft became victims of the air lawlessness of American pilots. In the Soviet sky, over the territory of the USSR, American fighters attacked the passenger Il-14, on which the families of our servicemen, women and children, were flying on vacation. No one survived.

Simultaneously with the actions of the RS-135 aircraft, a new reconnaissance tactic appears in the NATO Air Force. A foreign plane violates the border of the USSR. And after the rise of Soviet fighters, he hastily returns to neutral territory. This method of extracting intelligence was carried out without special spy equipment on board. The task of the secret agent was to provoke the actions of the Soviet Air Defense Forces, to determine their bases, the order of actions, and to identify the operating frequencies of the equipment. Such a decoy duck was designated by the abbreviation "dag", which meant a secret agent. The RS-135 aircraft was created on the basis of the civilian Boeing-707. Outwardly, it is very similar to him.

On the radar screens, the marks from these aircraft look the same. This similarity gave American intelligence new opportunities. Like, the Soviet military will not shoot down a civilian airliner. But if this happens, then the tragedy can be successfully used against the Soviet Union. The strategy turned out to be successful. True, usually such incidents were resolved peacefully. Soviet fighters approached the intruder and either led him to land or escorted him to the border when they received notification that a navigational error had occurred. By international rules, if navigation fails for the aircraft, then the commander is obliged to send a distress signal on the emergency channel. Fighters from the nearest state come to the aid of an aircraft in distress and show the way to the airfield.

In 1978, a South Korean Airlines Boeing 707 violated state border The USSR ignored the demands of the fighters, did not respond to the signals, and a rocket was fired at it. A downed huge plane was forced to land on a frozen lake in Karelia. Two people died - one wounded by shrapnel died from blood loss, and the other from a heart attack. The navigational error was excluded. The crew commander, a former military pilot with vast experience of about 10 years, served this route and could not accidentally get lost. Soviet experts proved that the deviation from the route was deliberate, and the crew saw the signals, but did not want to obey the Soviet fighters. It was another serious attempt to use a passenger airliner to check the reliable protection of the air borders of the USSR. However, on the night of August 31 to September 1, 1983, the provocation unfolded according to a different scenario.

MYSTERIOUS FLIGHT 007

On August 30, 1983, KAL flight 007 took off from New York's Kennedy Airport with 269 passengers on board. It was led by the most experienced pilot, Colonel of the South Korean Air Force Reserve Chang Den In, who had flown more than 10 thousand hours. Ahead of 11,400 kilometers of flight to Seoul on the international route P20. Regular flight. Nothing foretold tragedy. On August 31 at 2.30 local time, the aircraft makes a technical stop at Anchorage Airport for refueling. And here, without announcing the reasons, the flight is delayed for 40 minutes, and an additional 4 tons of fuel are loaded into the tanks of the aircraft. For the whole year, there were only three cases at this airport when the crew took off the plane with full tanks. Around this time, on the border of Kamchatka, Soviet air defenses detect flights of American reconnaissance aircraft in the border zone. And three ships of the US Navy ply near the territorial Soviet waters. 4 minutes after Flight 007 takes off, another South Korean plane is cleared to take off. The fact that the KAL 0015 twin plane took off, which will actually fly to Seoul, will subsequently be hushed up. The record of the radio exchange between flights 007 and 0015 will be classified by US intelligence agencies.

Around 20.00 Moscow time on August 31, 1983, a mark from the aircraft appeared on the screens of the air defense radars of the Far Eastern Military District, very similar to the RS-135. “The intruder crossed our airspace at a point,” Anatoly Kornukov recalled, “where Soviet strategic bombers usually returned from flights. Its course miraculously skirted the zone of destruction of the Soviet air defense. The crew of the intruder seemed to take into account the location of the air defense units of the Far East. The intruder's route also ran over a strategically important area - the base of Soviet nuclear submarines armed with intercontinental nuclear missiles.

The recorder recorded the report of the operator of the air defense command post of the Far Eastern Military District: “The target with the RS-135 radar mark invaded the airspace. I repeat. The target with the RS-135 radar mark invaded the airspace.”

“The duty officer called me,” General of the Army Anatoly Kornukov recalled, “comrade commander, there was a violation in Kamchatka. The on-duty air defense systems tried to attack the violator. They didn't succeed. We were given information that this target was going west of Kamchatka in our direction. Fighters are on standby. I ordered that, when approaching the borders of neutral waters, fighter jets be raised into the air to escort or, according to the situation, to destroy the violator of the airspace of the USSR.

And earlier, before this report on the state of emergency at the air border, the commander of the Air Force fighter division at that time, Major General Anatoly Kornukov, was warned that the American reconnaissance satellite Ferret D passed over Yakutsk and should reach the latitude of the northern part of Sakhalin at 03:07. Therefore, according to experts, everything in this tragedy was coordinated as a very powerful and massive intelligence operation. At that time, a whole reconnaissance complex operated over the Soviet Far East. In addition to the Ferret D satellites, two more RS-135s scanned space along the Kuril ridge. Powerful AWACS scouts patrolled in the zone of violation of the air border, and US Navy ships were at sea, and American ground tracking stations also worked on radiation towards the Soviet Union. In the meantime, the South Korean Boeing allegedly accidentally continued to deviate more and more from the authorized flight route further west deep into the Soviet Far East. According to experts, including Army General Anatoly Kornukov, the South Korean pilot was specifically ordered not to obey the requirements to land, and to perform any maneuvers in the air.

DETECT AND INTERCEPT THE INVADER

Two Soviet fighters rose to intercept the Boyn Ha-707. The Su-15 air defense interceptor directly carried out the combat mission, and the MiG-23 fighter covered it. In advance, the pilots were given a command: to confirm the target - a foreign reconnaissance aircraft and destroy it. Pilot Su-15 Osipovich managed to detect and target the intruder. But in this run, he did not press the trigger. At such a distance, and even at night, it was simply impossible to recognize the intruder. And the pilot himself still hoped that the order to destroy the target would be canceled.

At that most tense moment, military pilot Osipovich reported to the command post: “805. The intruder does not respond to the request, climbs and changes course. Difficult to follow. What are my actions?"

Answer from the CP: “805. Can you identify the type of aircraft?

Pilot: “Visibility is bad. I can't identify the plane.

And after a series of maneuvers before the eyes of the pilot of the Su-15 appeared huge liner illuminated by lights and flashing lights. Pilot Osipovich led his Su-15 on the left around the Boeing. At the same time, he gave a signal with side lights and swaying of the Su-15 wings. Then he repeated these actions on the right side. However, he did not receive a response signal from the Boeing.

“At that moment, I remembered that Osipovich flew out on a mission from third readiness,” recalled Army General Anatoly Kornukov, “and in such readiness the Su-15 was with suspended gondolas, each with a double-barreled gun. Four trunks. This is a powerful weapon. Therefore, he gave an order to the air regiment so that Osipovich opened warning fire. The pilot fired almost all the shells. There are only four cannons left. Why didn't the Boeing pilot notice or hear this fire? This is simply unbelievable, because the four barrels of guns, which are very fast-firing, give a large release of gas flames, as from an afterburner aircraft engine. Moreover, at night, such a flame can be seen very far. You just can't ignore it."

The situation is emergency. A decision had to be made. The intruder was already over the secret military bases of Sakhalin, and our planes were running out of fuel. The commander of the 40th Fighter Aviation Division, Major General Anatoly Kornukov, gave the order to destroy the target.

“When this command was received by the Su-15 pilot,” Anatoly Kornukov said, “he reported that he had stepped ahead of the intruder. After that, I took the microphone of the radio station transmitter in my hand and ordered - perform a turn on the afterburner with a right turn. The pilot complied with my command and replied that there was not enough fuel left in the plane. I told him - nothing will sit in Khomutovo. He turned on the afterburner so as not to fall into a tailspin because the speed of the Su-15 at that moment was low. And on two full afterburners, he energetically performed a turn, in fact, a full turn, and went into the rear hemisphere of the intruder aircraft at a distance of about 1.5-1.8 kilometers. The readiness of the missiles for launch immediately flashed on the plane, and the pilot fired two missiles in one gulp.

One missile hit the tail of the Boeing, the second demolished half of the left wing. The damaged huge car began to lose altitude sharply. Soviet fighter-interceptors left the attack zone and lost visual contact with the Boeing. Ground services immediately failed to accurately fix the crash site of the intruder.

At 6.24 Far Eastern time, the target violating the air borders of the USSR disappeared from the screens of air defense radars. A new round of the Cold War has begun. The attack on a “defenseless” civilian aircraft by Soviet fighters caused an outcry all over the world and made it possible to accuse the Soviet state of hostility. The troops of the two superpowers are on alert. The fleets of the USSR, the USA, and Japan rush to the place of the tragedy. And in the latter, they announce an alert gathering in the national air force.

THE FINAL OF THE TRAGEDY OF THE BOEING SPY

In the Western press, the reason for the violation of the borders of the USSR in the Far East by Boeing flight 007 was explained by experts as the result of an error when entering data into the on-board computer. At the same time, no one could say how this aircraft, equipped at that time with the most advanced means of control and navigation, controlled by an experienced pilot and controlled by dispatchers from several countries, deviated from its course by almost 500 kilometers. After all, it is simply unthinkable for specialists not to notice such a significant departure from the established flight route for 2.5 hours. As a result, the intruder flew over the most important Soviet military facilities in Kamchatka, the Far East and the southern part of Sakhalin. It was also obvious that the Boeing 707 was trying to get away from the air defense fighters by changing the speed, altitude and direction of flight. However, for some reason, the authorities and specialists in the United States did not notice all this and unleashed a literally information war against the USSR, accusing them of deliberately destroying a civilian airliner and its passengers along with the crew. The “black boxes” of the downed airliner could help to find out the truth. In the Tatar Strait, an underwater hunt begins for the remains of a downed Boeing.

According to Army General Anatoly Kornukov, American divers were sent away from the crash site by dropping two radio beacons into the sea, which imitated the signals of "black boxes". They "pecked on this duck." Therefore, Soviet divers were the first to reach the bottom near the wreckage of the Boeing. Before diving, our divers prepared for a terrible sight. At the bottom of the sea were supposed to be 269 victims of the tragedy - men, women, children. And they found about 30 bodies of the dead. The wreckage of the liner was very small. Their dispersion along the seabed clearly showed that the destruction of the hull of a huge aircraft occurred as a result of a powerful explosion, which simply could not have occurred after hitting the water of a wrecked liner. Usually after such crashes at the bottom there are large fragments of the fuselage, equipment, wings.

“As for the passengers of the Boeing, I am absolutely convinced that they were not on the liner,” General of the Army Anatoly Kornukov said, “the remains of so many dead could not disappear instantly, having dissolved in sea water. Large Sakhalin crabs also have nothing to do with it. Yes, and the undercurrents could not quickly scatter the remains of such a large number dead over great distances.

The luggage of the downed plane turned out to be more than strange. On the seabed, divers found glasses, powder boxes, women's bags without contents, it is not clear why clothes firmly attached to the cable, packed in one pack of the passports of the disappeared passengers. All found personal items fit into six small boxes. And where are the suitcases of passengers, the luggage they brought from the US, American gifts to Korean relatives, souvenirs? Soviet Union handed over the things found at the bottom of the sea to South Korea. But did the relatives identify the belongings of their loved ones? Or maybe all the so-called Boeing baggage was an imitation?

Questions also arise regarding the delay of flight 007 before departure. Is it not for this reason that both violations of the USSR state border in Kamchatka and Sakhalin coincided in time with the trajectory of the Ferret D spy satellite, which allowed US intelligence agencies monitor the work of air defense systems in the Far East? This question was frankly answered on July 20, 1984 by US intelligence analyst Ernie Volbman. On the air of an independent English television channel, he said: “As a result of this incident, US intelligence was hit like never before. She managed to achieve the inclusion of almost all Soviet communication facilities, radars, which operated for about four hours in an area of about seven thousand square kilometers, on operating frequencies.

This is the result for the United States of the tragic story of the Boeing 707 over Sakhalin. In that most difficult situation, Major General Anatoly Kornukov proved himself to be an experienced, courageous, strong-willed commander. Then the politicians managed to resolve the most acute international conflict peacefully. The actions of the commander of the 40th Fighter Air Division were carefully checked by the Moscow Commission. “They seized all the documents of objective control,” Anatoly Mikhailovich recalled those events,

representatives of the USSR Ministry of Defense, the main headquarters of the Air Force, the main military prosecutor's office worked with me personally,
they established that we acted correctly in accordance with the laws of our state and the orders of the command.”

However, even after the investigation in September 1983, the story of the Boeing intruder for the commander of the air division of the Air Force Anatoly Kornukov did not end. A large Korean diaspora lived on Sakhalin, about 35 thousand people. Provocations could well have occurred against the pilot and his family. The general began to call and threaten. Military counterintelligence conducted investigations and after a while the attackers were detained. At the request of Anatoly Mikhailovich, military pilot Osipovich, due to a possible threat to his life, he and his family were transferred to serve in the air garrison in Maykop.

The general of the army also said that he personally, together with one of the generals from the Far East, who was also directly involved in this incident, was summoned unexpectedly and urgently to Moscow. From Sakhalin, he, along with a colleague, was brought to Vladivostok, and from there directly to Moscow on IL-62. They expected the worst. We took a bottle of vodka with us on the flight. On the airfield of the Chkalovsky military airport, they were met, as Anatoly Mikhailovich said, by a "red" colonel. In a cap with a red band, which showed his belonging to the motorized rifle troops of the Ground Forces. The colonel turned out to be an assistant to the chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces. He took them to a hotel and offered to rest for two hours after a long flight. Exactly two hours later they were already in the office of the Chief of the General Staff, General of the Army Nikolai Ogarkov. According to Anatoly Kornukov, the commander greeted them quite cordially, shook hands and announced gratitude for the combat mission of protecting the Far Eastern air borders.

After this audience, they were brought to the Chkalovsky airfield and sent to the Il-62 to Khabarovsk. Directly from the airfield, the generals arrived at the office of the commander of the Far Eastern Military District and reported what had happened to them in Moscow.

After that tragedy, according to Army General Anatoly Kornukov, in his division, which he commanded at that time, a commission from Moscow seized all the documents of objective control on the tragedy with the South Korean Boeing at the command posts of the division, the air regiment - tracing paper from the air situation tablets, tape recordings negotiations with fighter-interceptor pilots, photographs of tablets, radar indicator screens. The members of the commission carefully analyzed all the commands and actions of the division commander.

Anatoly Mikhailovich also recalled in a conversation that when the Boeing was shot down, it was clear on the radar screen that it, circling, was falling into the sea. I made a few circles and disappeared from the screen of the remote indicator of the circular view.

Eight years have passed. The next investigation of the tragedy with the South Korean Boeing took place in 1991 at the time of the beginning of Yeltsin's presidency after the collapse of the USSR. Personally, the President of the Russian Federation gave the command to look into this tragedy. At that time, Anatoly Kornukov was already a colonel general and commanded the Moscow Air Defense District. Investigators interrogated him on all episodes of the tragedy eight years ago. And again, worries and worries not only for their personal fate, but for the fully fulfilled military duty to the Motherland. After all, the general also carried out the orders of the higher command, the laws of the USSR to protect the air borders of the state from encroachment. And then again interrogations and a possible demonstration trial to please the interested forces in the world. How, then, to defend the democratic new Russia from outside threats? After all, in that most difficult situation, as the commander of an air division, he fulfilled his military duty to the end and was not afraid of the upcoming responsibility and possible threats. Apparently, someone really wanted to blame the Russian General Anatoly Kornukov for the tragic story with the Boeing-707 of South Korean airlines.

Colonel General Anatoly Sitnov, Chief of Armaments of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation from 1994 to 2001, spoke especially for our magazine about General of the Army Anatoly Kornukov: - an intruder at a time when high-ranking military leaders in Moscow in the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff, at the headquarters of the Far Eastern Military District in Khabarovsk could not decide to destroy the air spy who had so brazenly violated the borders of the Soviet Union.

In the dashing 90s of the last century, the strong-willed, courageous, comprehensively trained commander of the Moscow Air Defense District, Colonel-General Anatoly Kornukov literally saved the most powerful strategic district from disbandment, which now formed the basis of the Russian Aerospace Defense. Thanks to Anatoly Mikhailovich, Russia now has a promising S-400 air defense system, the Pantsir S1 anti-aircraft missile system, a fifth-generation fighter, and many defense industry enterprises have been preserved.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, General of the Army Anatoly Kornukov, put in a lot of effort to ensure that the Russian Military Transport Aviation had a new promising An-70 aircraft, which is currently being tested.

Such military leaders as Army General Anatoly Mikhailovich Kornukov, who brilliantly commanded aviation in the second Chechen war, are undoubtedly the golden fund of our Russian army and air force. In the army and the defense industry, Anatoly Mikhailovich is respected and revered.

Alexander Babakin, military journalist, reserve colonel