All language subtitles for Air.Disasters.S02E02.Target.is.Destroyed.1080p.PMTP.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-maldini_track3_[eng]

35,000 feet
above the Sea of Japan.

Korean Air 007,
unreadable, unreadable.

We are experiencing
rapid decompression.

Descend to 1-0 thousand.

The pilots have
lost control of their plane.

Speed brake
is coming out.

A 747 with
269 people on board

plunges toward the sea.

Within hours,

the story began circulating
in Washington

that the Soviets
had been involved.

This shocking
incident escalates tensions

between two bitter rivals.

The investigation is mired
in secrecy and deception.

It's up to investigators
to find the answer,

before the crash of a passenger
jet leads to an all-out war.

Ladies and gentlemen,

we are starting our approach.

We lost both engines!

Put the mask over your nose.

Emergency descent.

Pilot: Mayday, mayday.

Brace for impact!

I think I lost one.

Investigation starting...

He's gonna crash!

Emergency descent.

Put the mask over your nose
and adjust the headband.

Emergency descent.

Emergency descent.

Put the mask over your nose
and adjust the headband.

Emergency descent.

Put the mask over your nose
and adjust the headband.

...and adjust the headband.

Emergency descent.

Put the mask over your nose
and adjust the headband.

It's just after
2:00 in the morning

aboard KAL Flight 007.

Korean Air 007,
positioned over NIPPI.

Estimating Nokka 1826132.0.

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 nearly 3,000-mile journey

over the North Pacific.

Once the plane is in the air,

there is very little
for the pilots to do.

Ladies and gentlemen,

we'll soon be serving breakfast
before we land in Kimpo,

which will be in
about three hours.

Many of the passengers

plan to take connector flights

to other destinations
after landing in Seoul.

Mary Jane Hendrie is heading
to Japan to start a new life.

My sister
Mary Jane found a job,

and she'd gotten hired
by this car 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.

Korean Air 007.

Go ahead, Korean Air 015.

What are you doing?

The flight crews chat
to help pass the time.

We're experiencing
an unexpectedly strong tailwind.

How much of a tailwind?

35 knots from 040.

In an effort
to conserve fuel,

the crew decides to take
the plane to a higher altitude.

Tokyo Center,
Korean Air 007.

Korean Air 007, Tokyo.

Korean Air 007,
request climb 350.

Roger, stand by.

Korean Air 007, climb and
maintain flight level 350.

Roger, Korean Air 007,

climb and maintain
flight level 350.

Then, without warning,

the plane is out of control.

What happened?

Retard throttles.

Landing gear.

Landing gear.

The crew extends
the landing gear

in an effort to stop the plane
from climbing.

Altitude is going up!

Altitude is going up!

Altitude is going up!

Speed brake is coming out!

I can't descend.

This isn't working!

This isn't working!

Engines are normal, sir!

Captain?

Is it rapid decompression?

Tokyo Center,
Korean Air 007.

Korean Air 007, Tokyo.

We are experiencing
rapid decompression.

Descend to 1-0 thousand.

Korean Air 007,
unreadable, unreadable.

Radio check on 10048.

Stand by, stand by, stand by!

Emergency descent.

Korean Air 007, Tokyo.

Korean Airlines Flight 007

and all 269 people on board
have vanished.

Korean Air 015,

would you attempt to contact
Korean Air 007, please,

and relay position?

All efforts to
contact the flight have failed.

Tokyo makes calls to other radar
stations in Japan and Korea.

I cannot contact
Korean Air 007.

A call is even made
to a radar facility

in the Soviet Union.

Relatives nervously await news

of the missing flight.

The company that
Mary Jane 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 the Soviets
had 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.

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

was that the plane appeared,
we intercepted it,

tried to make it 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, recorders,
and so forth.

The Soviet Union
claims Flight 007

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 tensions.

The KAL 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 U.N. calls on

the International Civil
Aviation Organization.

ICAO offers
a neutral investigation,

an investigation team

that can deal with all parties
involved in a neutral way.

Caj Frostell joins

the international team
of investigators

that will try to
uncover the truth

behind the destruction
of Flight 007.

With two superpowers
squaring off,

they're under pressure
to find answers

and find them fast.

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 join 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 U.S. did
formally complain

that the Soviets would either
sail across U.S. ships,

that they would
drop false pingers

to deflect listening devices
away from the true pinger.

The Soviets claim Flight 007

was flying in Soviet airspace
over Sakhalin Island

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.

The 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 coordinates
they were reporting

put them on course.

The Tokyo
air traffic controller

who last communicated
with Flight 007

tells investigators
that all seemed normal.

Korean Air 007,
positioned over NIPPI.

Estimating Nokka 1826132.0.

The crew reported
they were flying the R20 route.

But as with every other flight
over the Pacific,

007 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
talk to the crew

of the Korean Airlines flight

that was just minutes
behind Flight 007.

Tell me about
the exchange with Flight 007.

The captain
of the second flight

recounts an odd conversation
with the 007 crew.

We're experiencing
an unexpectedly strong tailwind.

How much of a tailwind?

35 knots from 040.

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 boxes
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 had
no direct information

that I would normally have
as an accident investigator.

Frostell gets
more information

from an unlikely source--
the U.S. 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 KAL 007 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 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 off course that much?

To find the answer,

investigators turn
their attention

to the navigation system
on board the 747.

It's called I.N.S.,
the Inertial Navigation System.

The I.N.S. that was used
on this airliner,

like most in that time period,

had an accuracy of 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.

59 degrees, 18.0 north.

Waypoints are coordinates

of latitude and longitude

with one-word names like
Bethel, Neeva or Nippi.

Flight 007's I.N.S.
should have been programmed

to find and follow those
electronic guideposts to Seoul.

...18.0 north.

At 8:49,
internal heading 270.

Perhaps there was
some last minute change

in the flight plan.

Caj Frostell listens to
the pre-flight conversation

between the crew and
the tower in Alaska.

Korean Air 007,

climb and maintain
flight level 310.

...473, turn right at...

It was total routine
from the beginning to the end.

There was nothing exceptional
with the takeoff

or the taxiing to position,
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 in how many pieces it was,
remained unknown.

With the investigation stalled,

Frostell turned to
the plane's manufacturers.

The U.S. and Boeing
offered to simulate the route

that we knew Korean 007
had flown.

We went over to Boeing
in Seattle,

and then Boeing carried out
the simulation.

Waypoint
number two, 59 degrees, 18...

Retracing Flight
007's steps in a simulator

leaves them with
a few possibilities.

One is that a mistake was made

while entering the coordinates
into the I.N.S.

60 degrees, 47.1 north.

Normally the co-pilot
would insert the waypoints

and the captain would check

that the correct digits
have been put in.

60 degrees,
47.1 north, check.

Misprogramming
the I.N.S. at the gate

could have taken the plane
over the Soviet Union.

Ok, 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 route.

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
over 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 I.N.S. Mode

would have been
an astonishing error.

At this point,
Frostell 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 it down.

The Soviets resorted
to deadly force

to punish this intruder.

It's like shooting the paperboy
in your front yard at night

because you think he 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 007 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 target and destroy.

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 Gennadi Osipovich

are refused.

And for the time being at least,

those questions
are left unanswered.

In December 1983, less than
four months after the disaster,

ICAO 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 believed that there was
further investigation to do.

The key to this mystery

remains locked inside
the plane's black boxes,

which are assumed to be
lost forever beneath the sea.

In the months
following the KAL 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 I.D. washed up
on the shore of Japan.

Of course getting that I.D. back
was, at least we had something.

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.

But the Soviets keep
the boxes to themselves.

The information is 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.

Eager to break with the past,

the new administration in Moscow
decides to go public.

The actual unveiling
of the data recorders

and black boxes
was a total surprise.

And suddenly, this new material
promised 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 a 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 look 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."

Caj Frostell
is asked to lead

the new team of investigators
based in Paris.

And as a clear indication
that the times have changed,

Vladimir Kofman, a Russian
avionics expert, joins the team.

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 confirm

that the CVR handed over
by the Russians

is the same box that was
installed on Flight 007.

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

that 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 on this
high magnification photograph.

One of the techniques
that the french had

that I hadn't seen before,

it 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 the tape was
spliced together.

Finally, investigators
can listen to the tape,

confident that every word
is authentic.

What?

It's already time for breakfast?

Do you want to eat now?

Let's eat later.

But all they hear
is idle banter from the crew.

I heard there's
a currency exchange

-at the airport.
-What kind of money?

Dollars to Korean money.

It's in the domestic building.

52010, intercept
four American 10-37.

There is not
a word on the tape

to suggest the crew
was on a spy mission.

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 the end.

There was no deviation
whatsoever

in the magnetic heading.

The crew of KAL 007
never activated

the waypoint navigation system.

Gear up.

Landing gear up.

It seems they simply
forgot a basic step

in their standard
flight procedure.

The I.N.S. 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 I.N.S. Commands.

Instead, it was following
a compass mode.

So it's only telling them

where they're supposed to be?

Investigators learn
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.

Korean Air 007,
positioned over NIPPI.

Estimating Nokka 1826132.0.

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 040.

The fact that
they were experiencing

completely different
weather patterns

than 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 Chun is--

somewhere in his mind,
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 have pulled 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 they didn't notice
they were straying off course.

Everybody makes
mistakes sooner or later.

Good pilots make mistakes,

not so good pilot
makes mistakes.

We're all making mistakes.

When investigators
combine the conversation data

from Flight 007 with intercepted
Soviet transmissions,

they get a detailed picture
of what went wrong

on September 1, 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.

There 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.

Target traveling at high speed

and approaching border.

But the fighters
are not fast enough.

The plane leaves Soviet airspace

and continues along
its heading to Seoul.

They figured that
they had just been spooked,

and it was, that was all over.

Unfortunately for everyone
involved, it wasn't.

The airliner
is just seconds

from flying over
the island of Sakhalin.

So Sakhalin 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 Kimpo, which
will be in about three hours.

Target traveling
at high speed

and approaching border.

Target is on your heading.

I can see it both
visually and on the screen.

Major Gennadi
Osipovich, the lead fighter,

makes visual contact
with Flight 007.

Give warning burst with cannon.

But the warning shots
go unnoticed.

Take up position for attack.

Approach target and destroy.

Roger,
locked on already.

Executed launch.

Target is destroyed.

The fighter pilot believed

the 747 was an enemy spy plane.

It takes nearly a decade
after he shot down KAL 007

for that pilot to tell
his side of the story.

Investigators
have long wondered

what major Gennadi Osipovich
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 cannon.

When warning shots
are fired,

they usually include tracers,
which are like flares,

and are easily seen.

However, Osipovich has
no tracers loaded in his cannon.

They're supposed
to load tracers,

just no one had shipped them any
for the last six months,

so they weren't there.

But even without the tracers,

Osipovich thinks the 747 crew
should have seen him.

As I caught up with them,

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.

Korean Air 007,
request climb 350.

Korean Air 007,

climb and maintain
flight level 350.

Like a car going uphill,

a climbing plane slows down.

But to the fighter pilot
following the 747,

this is interpreted
as an evasive maneuver.

He decreased 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 banked 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 up position for attack.

Roger,
locked on already.

Executed launch.

Osipovich fires
two air-to-air missiles.

They travel over 1,200 miles
an hour towards the jetliner.

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.

Emergency descent.

Put the mask over your nose
and adjust the headband.

Emergency descent.

Put the mask over your nose
and adjust the headband.

In the time that
they lost pressurization

to a certain point, indicated
that the hole would have been

approximately 1.75 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
5,000 feet per minute.

The stricken jetliner plummeted

towards the Sea of Japan,

with most of its passengers
likely still conscious.

And that's when
the recording stops.

Our determination was that
the airframe probably broke up

at that point.

To this day,
Gennadi Osipovich is convinced

he shot down a spy plane.

I knew they wouldn't
order me to intercept

if it was a civilian plane
or a cargo plane,

only if it was a trespasser.

We weren't 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.

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,
Caj Frostell 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 007
is ruled an accident.

Frostell recommends that
all passenger planes

be equipped with
a clear indicator

that the autopilot
is in heading mode.

The tragedy of 007 is
that it didn't have to happen,

it was not inevitable.

It was a series of accidents,

a series of misunderstandings,

a series of 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
going to see you again.

Korean 007 has had
a great effect on my life.

It has been close to my heart.

That has been very sad for me.

And my sympathy and condolences
all these years

have gone out to the families.