KAL007 Coldwar Mystery

Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
Jim Logajan wrote:
The civilian flight crew in this case used all possible and
internationally known means of making themselves known...

I don't think you quite understood what I said. Let me repeat it: the
onus is on civilians to identify themselves to military forces.
Yes, that's why their planes normally carry radar transponders, are not painted
olive or grey and communicate in plain.
If you want them to follow a particular procedure, publish them.
Until then anybody appearing not to be a combatant is supposed to be treated
as a noncombatant.


The only obligation on the military is to be reasonably receptive to such
messages directed at them.
No it isn't. Making an effort to protect noncombatants includes making
an effort to find them before the shooting starts. That, in turn implies
making an effort to recognize what you see.


It may not be pretty, but that's the way things work in a real combat
zone, and the international laws in question recognize that fact.
What did they mistake that airliner for anyway? A strategic bomber or what?
And which of the enemies they were engaged with had bombers made by airbus?


"Throughout its final flight IR655 was in radio contact with various air
traffic control services using standard civil aviation frequencies, and
had spoken in English to Bandar Abbas Approach Control seconds before the
Vincennes launched its missiles..."

Note, not a word about IR655 attempting to communicate with the military
forces in question,
That is because they are not supposed to communicate with the military.



"...The Vincennes at that time had no
equipment suitable for monitoring civil aviation frequencies, other than
the International Air Distress frequency, despite being a sophisticated
anti-aircraft warship."[1]

As John has already noted, this is one thing that very frequency is for:
communicating with people who might have reason to shoot at you, to ask
them to please refrain.
No, it's for communicating that your wings have just fallen off. Talking
about the planes status and position during normal flight is *not* what
emergency frequencies are for.


Does international law permit anybody in a "war
zone", even those who are not direct parties to the conflict, to shoot
first and ask questions later?

Basically, stripped of the rhetoric, yes.
Maybe you don't have to talk to them first, but you are to protect people
not taking part in hostilities. That means a reasonable effort to identify
people not trained to follow your (unpublished!) rules of engagement.

Greetings!
Volker

I think the Vincennes shot it down deliberately.

It was revenge for PanAm 003.

The cowards won't admit it though because in the USA's
own words ::::::::


THERE IS NEVER EVER ANY REASON TO SHOOT DOWN
AN UNARMED CIVILIAN AIRLINER.

TO DO SO IS "BARBARIC"

Now I wonder who said that ?

Guess they forgot to tell the Vincennes !

On Sat, 28 Jan 2006 09:47:33 GMT, Dave Hazelwood wrote:



I think the Vincennes shot it down deliberately.

It was revenge for PanAm 003.

The cowards won't admit it though because in the USA's
own words ::::::::


THERE IS NEVER EVER ANY REASON TO SHOOT DOWN
AN UNARMED CIVILIAN AIRLINER.

TO DO SO IS "BARBARIC"

Now I wonder who said that ?

Guess they forgot to tell the Vincennes !

KAL 007 and Iran Air 655: Comparing the Coverage

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The day after a Soviet interceptor plane blew up a Korean passenger jet, the first sentence of a New York Times editorial (9/2/83) was unequivocal: "There is no conceivable excuse
for any nation shooting down a harmless airliner." Headlined "Murder in the Air", the editorial asserted that "no circumstance whatever justifies attacking an innocent plane."

Confronted with the sudden reality of a similar action by the U.S. government, the New York Times inverted every standard invoked with righteous indignation five years earlier.
Editorials condemning the KAL shootdown were filled with phrases like "wanton killing," "reckless aerial murder" and "no conceivable excuse." But when Iran Air's flight 655 was
blown out of the sky on July 3, excuses were more than conceivable -- they were profuse.

Two days after the Iranian passenger jet went down in flames killing 290 people, the Times (7/5/88) editorialized that "while horrifying, it was nonetheless an accident." The
editorial concluded, "The onus for avoiding such accidents in the future rests on civilian aircraft: avoid combat zones, fly high, acknowledge warnings."

A similar pattern pervaded electronic media coverage. In the aftermath of the KAL incident, America's airwaves routinely carried journalistic denunciations. CBS anchor Dan Rather,
for example, called it a "barbaric act." No such adjectives were heard from America's TV commentators when discussing the U.S. shootdown of a civilian jet.

As soon as the Iranian Airbus crashed into the Persian Gulf, the Reagan administration set out to discourage what should have been obvious comparisons between the Soviet Union's
tragic mistake and our tragic mistake. The New York Times and other media uncritically quoted the President's July 4 resurrection of his administration's timeworn deceit: "Remember
the KAL, a group of Soviet fighter planes went up, identified the plane for what it was and then proceeded to shoot it down. There's no comparison."

Virtually ignored was a key finding of Seymour Hersh's 1986 book The Target Is Destroyed -- that the Reagan administration knew within days of the KALshootdown that the Soviets had
believed it to be a military aircraft on a spy mission. Soviet commanders had no idea that they were tracking a plane with civilians on board. The Times had acknowledged this long
after the fact in an editorial, "The Lie That Wasn't Shot Down" (1/18/88); yet when Reagan lied again, the failed again to shoot it down.

Instead, Times correspondent R.W. Apple, Jr. weighed in (7/5/88) with an analysis headlined, "Military Errors: The Snafu as History". In his lead, Apple observed that "the
destruction of an Iranian airliner...came as a sharp reminder of the pervasive role of error in military history." The piece drew many parallels to the Iran jetliner's tragic end
-- citing examples from the American Revolution, World War II and Vietnam -- while ignoring the most obvious analogy. About the KAL 007 shootdown, Apple said not a word.

If anything, the recent tragedy was less defensible than the KAL disaster. The Iran Air jet went down in broad daylight, well within its approved commercial airline course over
international waters, without ever having strayed into any unauthorized air space. In contrast, the Korean plane flew way off course, deep into Soviet territory above sensitive
military installations, in the dead of night.

But, as with Washington's policy-makers, the mass media was intent on debunking relevant comparisons rather than exploring them. The government's public relations spin quickly
became the mass media's: A tragic mishap had occurred in the Persian Gulf, amid puzzling behavior of the passenger jet. Blaming the victim was standard fare, as reporters focused
on the plight of U.S.S. Vincennes commander Capt. Will Rodgers III, whose picture appeared on tabloid covers (7/5/88) with bold headlines -- h|q" --"Captain's Anguish"Newsday and
"Captain's Agony" (New York Post).

At the same time, U.S. journalists asserted that the Iranian government was eager to exploit its new propaganda advantage. Correspondent Tom Fenton informed viewers of the CBS
Evening News (7/6/88) that Iran was intent on making sure the event would not slip from the world's front pages; colleague Bert Quint followed up minutes later with a similar
theme.

Sorely lacking from the outset was any semblance of soul-searching about the holier-than-Moscow Soviet-bashing that followed the KAL accident. The last thing that White House
officials wanted was any such national self-examination. But we might have hoped for more independence from the U.S. media, which allowed their proclaimed precepts to spin 180
degrees in an instant, while discarding basic insights like the one expressed in a New York Times editorial six days after KAL 007 exploded (9/7/83): "To proclaim a 'right' to
shoot down suspicious planes does not make it right to do so."

Volker Hetzer wrote:

:What did they mistake that airliner for anyway? A strategic bomber or what?
:And which of the enemies they were engaged with had bombers made by airbus?

If you don't know this then you don't know anything about the
incident. It is also clear that you don't know anything about radar.

The radar paint is not marked 'Airbus'. You can't tell what kind of
aircraft it is based on ANYTHING about the little dot you see on the
scope. It is, in fact, quite easy to miss entirely a skin paint with
no transponder block. It's just a little dot, after all.

The transponder block is supposed to tell you what is going on. It is
based on what the transponder on the aircraft does in response to the
radar paint.

Civilian aircraft typically have transponders set to send Mode 3/A and
Mode C. Mode 3/A has thumbwheels that let an aircraft set a unique ID
code in response to instructions from ATC. Mode C is an automatic
altitude transponder code.

Military aircraft can also send Mode 3/A and Mode C. There are some
other modes (Mode 1, Mode 2, Mode 4) that are only used by military
aircraft. Military aircraft can turn off the military-only modes and
can look just like commercial aircraft. They can even turn the
transponder off entirely.

Now, on to the actual events. The Vincennes had earlier seen an
Iranian F-14 in the area that the airliner flight was in. The two
contacts merged. They thought the airliner was the F-14. They also
grossly misread their displays, misidentifying course, speed, and
altitude change of the airliner.

Hint: If you don't know anything about what happened, perhaps it
would be better to avoid making smart remarks that merely highlight
your ignorance.

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

Fred J. McCall wrote:
Volker Hetzer wrote:

:What did they mistake that airliner for anyway? A strategic bomber or what?
:And which of the enemies they were engaged with had bombers made by airbus?

If you don't know this then you don't know anything about the
incident. It is also clear that you don't know anything about radar.

The radar paint is not marked 'Airbus'.
I know that. I also did know someone working at a radar point in east germany.
And echoes do differ. Maybe not enough to tell an f14 from an f18 but a
big plane ought to have stood out.

The transponder block is supposed to tell you what is going on. It is
based on what the transponder on the aircraft does in response to the
radar paint.
Right. And did the airbus' transponder work?
Then they've done what's expected from a civilian airliner, which was the
issue I was responding to.

Greetings!
Volker

On Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:17:45 +0100, Volker Hetzer wrote:

Fred J. McCall wrote:
Volker Hetzer wrote:

:What did they mistake that airliner for anyway? A strategic bomber or what?
:And which of the enemies they were engaged with had bombers made by airbus?

If you don't know this then you don't know anything about the
incident. It is also clear that you don't know anything about radar.

The radar paint is not marked 'Airbus'.
I know that. I also did know someone working at a radar point in east germany.
And echoes do differ. Maybe not enough to tell an f14 from an f18 but a
big plane ought to have stood out.

The transponder block is supposed to tell you what is going on. It is
based on what the transponder on the aircraft does in response to the
radar paint.
Right. And did the airbus' transponder work?
Then they've done what's expected from a civilian airliner, which was the
issue I was responding to.

Greetings!
Volker


The US shot it down on purpose. That is clear. The airliner was not to blame
at all.

But of course it is only "barbaric" when somebody other than the USA does
the shooting. When the USA does it it is one of the following:

1. Collateral damage
2. A tragic accident.
3. The innocent victims fault.



Take your pick.

The USA never punishes its own war criminals. Even Lt Calley got off.

Volker Hetzer wrote:

:Fred J. McCall wrote:
: Volker Hetzer wrote:
:
: :What did they mistake that airliner for anyway? A strategic bomber or what?
: :And which of the enemies they were engaged with had bombers made by airbus?
:
: If you don't know this then you don't know anything about the
: incident. It is also clear that you don't know anything about radar.
:
: The radar paint is not marked 'Airbus'.
:
:I know that. I also did know someone working at a radar point in east germany.
:And echoes do differ. Maybe not enough to tell an f14 from an f18 but a
:big plane ought to have stood out.

Nope. They're both just a dot.

: The transponder block is supposed to tell you what is going on. It is
: based on what the transponder on the aircraft does in response to the
: radar paint.
:
:Right. And did the airbus' transponder work?

Yes, but that doesn't mean anything, as I explained in the part you
snipped. A military aircraft can look identical to a civilian
aircraft on transponder, as well.

:Then they've done what's expected from a civilian airliner, which was the
:issue I was responding to.

Except for the habit of Iranian aircraft not to answer radio
challenges at the time.

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to
live in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Dryden

Fred J. McCall kirjoitti:
Volker Hetzer wrote:

:Fred J. McCall wrote:

Snip

:Then they've done what's expected from a civilian airliner, which was the
:issue I was responding to.

Except for the habit of Iranian aircraft not to answer radio
challenges at the time.

Admittedly I do not recall all that much of the incident, but I believe
that shortly after the killing there was some kind of explanation
according to which Vincennes mistook radio traffic between Iranian air
control and a fighter on the tarmac of a nearby air field to be
associated with the approaching radar echo.

If so, would Vincennes not have broadcasted their challenge on that
frequency? And wouldn't such challenge thus have been unheared or at
least categorized as something directed to other traffic by the crew of
the Airbus?

H Tavaila

In article , Harri Tavaila says...

Fred J. McCall kirjoitti:
Volker Hetzer wrote:

:Fred J. McCall wrote:

Snip

:Then they've done what's expected from a civilian airliner, which was the
:issue I was responding to.

Except for the habit of Iranian aircraft not to answer radio
challenges at the time.

Admittedly I do not recall all that much of the incident, but I believe
that shortly after the killing there was some kind of explanation
according to which Vincennes mistook radio traffic between Iranian air
control and a fighter on the tarmac of a nearby air field to be
associated with the approaching radar echo.

If so, would Vincennes not have broadcasted their challenge on that
frequency? And wouldn't such challenge thus have been unheared or at
least categorized as something directed to other traffic by the crew of
the Airbus?


The Vincennes broadcast its challenges on two radio frequencies, 121.5 MHz
and 243 MHz. These are frequencies specifically set aside for this sort of
communication, precisely so that there will be no guesswork involved, and
the Airbus should have been monitoring 121.5 MHz.

The cockpit voice recorder from the Airbus was never recovered, so we don't
know whether the warning was recieved and ignored or not recieved at all.
It seems unlikely that anyone would ignore such a warning, whereas it is
fairly common and usually harmless for people to forget about guarding 121.5.
Either way, there was no response to the Vincenne's challenges, on either
frequency.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
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Fred J. McCall wrote:

Now, on to the actual events. The Vincennes had earlier seen an
Iranian F-14 in the area that the airliner flight was in.


Hold it. If they can't tell what a blip is, how did they know that this
particular blip was an F-14?

Pat