The Fighter Pilot

The Fighter Pilot(Michael D. Warner) The Fighter Pilot

(Copyright 2005 by Michael D. Warner. All rights reserved.)

The Russian fighter pilot was the best in his squadron. The year was 1983. He passed long nights in the alert-shack playing chess with his fellows, a game at which he seemed unbeatable. His cold, emotionless stare unnerved opponents. Off duty, Yul shared a deep, secure love with the airline stewardess who flew for KAL and whose brief layovers in the East Berlin sector provided scant moments of ecstacy producing heartfelt intentions of eventual marriage and family.

A long month would pass before Kim's rotation from the San Francisco-to-Seoul flight to the European assignment where she could again share treasured layovers with her Russian pilot/lover in East Berlin.

Pacing the alert-shack, Yul almost welcomed the startling scream of the scramble-horn.

"The American C-135 spy-plane," he told himself as he scrambled into the cockpit of his MIG-27.

Airborne in the still night, he glanced to starboard. His wingman lagged several meters behind.

"Tighten up." he ordered.

The ground-controller's voice furnished calm headings to fly as the fighters proceded. Time passed. The voice in his headset grew sharper and rose higher in pitch. The pilots armed their air-to-air missiles, and swiftly closed on the slower target. Suddenly, there was confusion. The target had suddenly changed course. The controller's voice sounded hoarse.

Then he saw it. The ship appeared to be a civilian airliner instead of the expected American spy-plane. The usual incursion of the American spy-plane never had actually encroached forbidden Russian airspace to this degree. He waited for the Russian airspace controller order the airliner to land immediately on Sakhalein Island. But what ___? His radio crackled static as the airliner began a slow turn to the left away from the island.

The controller's voice cracked but his order was clear. "Line-astern and maintain lock on target."

Yul ordered his wingman into the standard intercept profile, a position providing cover from high above, as he turned his own craft in a circle to come up behind the fat target. In an instant he recognized the ship as a Boeing 747. Concentrating on the instrument panel, he heard the command to fire his missiles. Just then he realized it was a KAL ship. He knew which flight it had to be. He knew she would likely be on board. His cold eyes narrowed as his finger squeezed the trigger. Launching the missiles, his vision blurred.

--THE END--

Official record

The closest witness to the incident, the Soviet pilot who fired the missile, later confirmed that international standards for interception were not followed, and that he had been instructed by military authorities to lie on television about firing warning shots. The Soviet side officially maintained that they made radio calls and that KAL 007 did not reply. However, no other aircraft or ground monitors covering those emergency frequencies at the time ever heard any Soviet radio calls.

It is generally believed that KAL 007 was mistaken for a USAF RC-135 that was flying a routine electronic intelligence mission northeast of Kamchatka at about the same time. The primary long-range Soviet radar systems were not operational at the time, so as the RC-135 flew on its "racetrack" course it appeared on the inbound leg, turned around, and then disappeared again. This pattern was repeated several times, until Flight 007 flew inbound on a track very close to the RC-135's inbound leg at roughly the time the plane should have re-appeared on their radars. This time the radar contact did not turn outbound again, giving Soviet forces what they believed was a rare opportunity to intercept it. The US routinely conducted Burning Wind SIGINT/COMINT flights to test the USSR's air defense systems (and over the years lost several planes on such missions).

(Copyright 2005 by Michael D. Warner. All rights reserved.)