Word: kal
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Back in the passenger cabins, by KAL's usual procedures the women flight attendants would now switch to native Korean dress. The bright and multicolored costumes include long skirts (chima) and short, flared blouses (chogori). They had orange juice and sandwich wedges on hand for the tourist passengers, fancy snacks of chicken florentine, zucchini au gratin, rice and cheddar croquettes, and soba, a Japanese broth, for the first-class travelers. Everything presumably would have seemed normal as the passengers munched and dozed their way toward Seoul...
...KAL pilot had no way of knowing that other electronic eyes were watching Flight 007 from far ahead of him, although he would assume the Soviets would be monitoring the aircraft. Soviet radar had locked on to the 747 at about noon (E.D.T.) that day, when Flight 007 was cruising southwestward over the Bering Sea, and would follow the plane for the next 2½ fateful hours. As always, U.S. and Japanese intelligence stations were in effect watching the Soviets as they watched the jumbo jet. The stations did so by recording the radio communications between the Soviet radar operators...
...roller-coaster of worry, falsely raised joy and final sorrow. They waited for five agonizing hours for some word of the missing plane's fate. Rumors filled the vacuum. The 747 had been hijacked. No, it had been forced to land on Soviet soil. Then official confirmation. A KAL spokesman said on the p.a. system that the airliner was safely down on Sakhalin. Everyone should leave telephone numbers and await word on the reunion. Cheers filled the terminal. Another 13 hours passed before the reality came from distant Washington. Shultz, his voice quavering as he fought to control...
...interceptors signal the airliner to change course or to land, and if so, did the Korean crew ignore the signals? The Soviets, of course, insist that both answers are yes. But so far the tapes of their air-to-ground reports have not borne out the claim. Moreover, the KAL crew would have made its own radio report of such action, if it had been able...
...past 30 years, attacks on civilian airliners have been rare. The Soviets, however, seem to have a quick trigger. Last week's incident marked the second time in just five years that Soviet fighters have shot down a passenger jet. In 1978, Korean Air Lines (KAL) Flight 902 with 110 passengers and crew on board was cruising routinely from Paris to Seoul when navigational equipment apparently malfunctioned. Disoriented, the pilot veered 180° off course and penetrated Soviet airspace near Murmansk, above the Arctic Circle. For two hours the jet flew serenely over sensitive strategic submarine and bomber bases...