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According to the Republican Staff Study, “sensitive special intelligence” (NSA electronic intercepts) revealed the following:  About four hours after the shoot-down, Soviet Air Defense command posts  were reporting that Soviet pilots  were saying that a civilian passenger plane had been shot down instead of a U.S. RC-135 reconnaissance plane, and they (the command posts) were expressing regret, both that they had not downed the RC-135 and that now the Americans would accuse them of killing Americans.  

According to the Republican Staff Study, “sensitive special intelligence” (NSA electronic intercepts) revealed the following:  About four hours after the shoot-down, Soviet Air Defense command posts  were reporting that Soviet pilots  were saying that a civilian passenger plane had been shot down instead of a U.S. RC-135 reconnaissance plane, and they (the command posts) were expressing regret, both that they had not downed the RC-135 and that now the Americans would accuse them of killing Americans.  

   

   

The knowledge  that  Americans among the passengers  were killed could not have come from media coverage of event as at that time the world was  unaware that KAL 007  had been shot down, though  there was knwoledge that the flight was overdue and missing. The Study asks how, while flying overhead, could Soviet pilots conclude that Americans were among the passengers killed?  They might conclude from seeing the aircraft’s distinctive hump as the plane floated on the water that it was a passenger plane that was shot down, as in 1983 there were no military versions of the Boeing 747.  And they might have seen the distinctive bird emblem on the tail of the aircraft—the symbol in use then by Korean Air Lines—but this would not indicate the nationalities of the passengers.  The Study would conclude that the only way Soviet pilots could know that Americans had been killed is if they had heard that information on their radios during the time the rescue was actually taking place.

The knowledge  that  Americans among the passengers  were killed could not have come from media coverage of event as at that time the world was  unaware that KAL 007  had been shot down, though  there was knwoledge that the flight was overdue and missing. The Study asks how, while flying overhead, could Soviet pilots conclude that Americans were among the passengers killed?  They might conclude from seeing the aircraft’s distinctive hump as the plane floated on the water that it was a passenger plane that was shot down, as in 1983 there were no military versions of the Boeing 747.  And they might have seen the distinctive bird emblem on the tail of the aircraft—the symbol in use then by Korean Air Lines—but this would not indicate the nationalities of the passengers.  The Study would conclude that the only way Soviet pilots could know that Americans had been killed is if they had heard that information on their radios during the time the rescue was actually taking place.

   

   

“Thus the only way that Soviet pilots could possibly have identified the nationality of some of the KAL 007 passengers as Americans, from the air, would have been from possible emergency radio communications which U. S. Intelligence did not intercept, from either the stricken airliner ditched at sea, or from its life rafts, or from Soviet rescue boats.” (Republican Staff StudyReport, pg. 47)  

“Thus the only way that Soviet pilots could possibly have identified the nationality of some of the KAL 007 passengers as Americans, from the air, would have been from possible emergency radio communications which U. S. Intelligence did not intercept, from either the stricken airliner ditched at sea, or from its life rafts, or from Soviet rescue boats.” (Republican Staff StudyReport, pg. 47)

 

==See Also==

==See Also==

*[[Korean Airlines Flight 007]]

*[[Korean Airlines Flight 007]]

*[[Water Ditching]]

*[[Water Ditching]]

*[[Passenger Plane Crashes at Sea]]

*[[Passenger Plane Crashes at Sea]]