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===a Credible Report===

===a Credible Report===

According to the Republican Staff Study (draft) 1991 Report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations <ref>, http://www.rescue007.org/republican_staff_study.htm</ref>“sensitive special intelligence” (NSA intercepts) revealed the following:  About four hours after the shoot-down, Soviet Air Defense command posts reported 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 (draft) 1991 Report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations [http://www.rescue007.org/republican_staff_study.htm] “sensitive special intelligence” (NSA intercepts) revealed the following:  About four hours after the shoot-down, Soviet Air Defense command posts reported 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 Study asks how, while flying overhead, could Soviet pilots conclude that Americans were among the passengers?  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 Study asks how, while flying overhead, could Soviet pilots conclude that Americans were among the passengers?  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.