The co-pilot waited while the push-back vehicle moved the 350-ton aircraft away from the gate. Once clear and disconnected, Choi increased the thrust of the engines, and the airliner started to crawl forward towards the runway. Arriving on runway 31L, Captain Khan took over and the aircraft, bound for Seoul, finally took off, heading for Anchorage and the Anchorage International Airport for refuelling, after which it would continue its journey to its final destination: the capital of South Korea. The flight deck crew and the cabin crew switched into their usual routine of ensuring a safe flight and seeing to the needs of their passengers. The time passed quickly and they soon landed at Anchorage to refuel.
Its fuel tanks now topped up, the Jumbo Jet KAL 150 lumbered down the runway, steadily gathering speed until the pilot was able to rotate the Boeing 747 and lift the laden aircraft off the ground, departing Anchorage Airport at one in the afternoon, UTC time. The Jumbo Jet steadily gained height as it climbed up into the now clear skies, the pilot tilting the plane gently to the left before straightening up and slotting into their assigned route: J501. Now, on the northernmost of the five passenger plane corridors available to them, the pilot and co-pilot confirmed with each other that they were safely in corridor Romeo 20, the North Pacific route that passed within eleven and a half kilometres of Soviet airspace to their north, along the Kamchatka Peninsula, a space fiercely guarded by the Soviet air force. The pilot and co-pilot settled down for the straightforward eight-hour flight, leaving the autopilot to do the bulk of the work and calling the cabin crew for a much needed cup of coffee. The cabin crew themselves were starting their job in earnest, going about their duties in the main body of the plane, ensuring the 269 passengers onboard, one of them being a Democratic congressman, were comfortable.
But, unbeknown to the pilot, passengers and crew, reasons that even to this day are not fully understood, they were slowly drifting off their assigned course. Although the Korean Airline had received its computerised flight plan, designating the various waypoints for KAL 150’s route from Anchorage to Seoul, and the autopilot was making appropriate adjustments, taking account of wind speed and wind direction, and the plane’s changing weight as fuel was burnt up, all was not well. After nearly half an hour in the air, a civilian radar at Kenai, on the eastern shore of Cook Inlet, tracked the passenger plane as being four kilometres north of where they should have been. The pilot, blissfully unaware of this deviation, continued with their flight towards Seoul.
For reasons unknown, Captain Chen Khan and his co-pilot failed to verify their position with Bethel, a small fishing village on the western tip of Alaska, and were subsequently picked up by the King Salmon’s military radar a full eight and a half kilometres north of their planned position. The pilot reported being on course, even though they had exceeded the safety margin for deviations such as these by a margin of up to six times. The permissible drift for a passenger airliner was two nautical miles per hour. The error continued.
By the second waypoint, KAL 150 was forty kilometres off course. By the third, an astounding one hundred kilometres off course.
“Comrade General, we have an unauthorised contact.”
General Dimitriev, Commander of Sokol Air Force Base, on the base that day due to the impending test of a missile launch, strode over to the operator’s screen. “What is it?”
“It’s big, Comrade General, the size of a large bomber or perhaps a civilian airliner.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. They know this airspace is out of bounds. It has to be something else. A spy plane, perhaps?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Any of our own aircraft scheduled to fly in this area, for the missile test, maybe?”
“Nothing on record.”
“Then check again,” the commander snapped. He shouted across the control room to one of his junior officers, “Get me the operations duty officer, now!”
He marched across the room and snatched the handset from his subordinate. “Moskvin, we have an intruder in our airspace. I want an immediate launch.”
“What is it, sir? Is it an American spy plane?”
“An intruder, as I have just told you. Now get a bloody fighter in the air.” Dimitriev slammed the phone down before the officer could respond. “Get me General Kozerski, quickly.”
There was a few moments’ delay before the duty lieutenant passed the handset yet again to the commander of the Sokol Air Force Base.
“We have an unidentified intruder in our airspace, Comrade General.”
“Have you launched an intercept?”
“We are about to, sir.”
“It should be in the air now, General Dimitriev. What if it is an American recce plane preceding a strike by American bombers?”
“Yes, sir, but—”
“Why haven’t we seen it sooner?”
“Since the arctic gales knocked out our radar, we have restricted capabilities, Comrade General.”
“I don’t care. It shouldn’t be there; now deal with it. Do you understand your orders, General?”
“Yes, sir.”
With that the line was disconnected and Dimitriev turned to one of the officers close by. “Have they launched yet?”
“Yes, sir, they’re in the air.”
“Patch the comms through to here. I want to hear this.”
“Right away, Comrade General.”
Within seconds, the speakers in the control room crackled to life, and the conversation between the interceptor and ground control could be heard throughout the control room.
“Charkov, this is Tsaryov, over.”
Charkov, the call sign for General Dimitriev, was called by the air combat controller, Tsaryov, from the Combat Control Centre of the Fighter Division.
Dimitriev grabbed the handset. “Tsaryov, this is General Dimitriev. Have they made contact, over?”
“Yes, sir,” responded, Tsaryov, Captain Shabunin, the air combat controller. “Two pilots have been sent up, but we don’t know what is happening yet.”
“The target?”
“It’s heading straight for our island, towards Terpenie Bay. It looks suspicious, sir, but it can’t be the enemy. They wouldn’t be this stupid, would they? Could it be one of ours?”
“Tsaryov, find that target.”
“But it will be in neutral waters before we reach it.”
“I don’t care if it is over neutral waters. Find it!”
“KAL 017, from KAL 150, how is your flight?”
“KAL 150, flight OK. We’re getting pretty strong tailwinds though. What’s it like for you?”
“KAL 017, how strong and in what direction? How many knots?”
“KAL 150, fifteen knots, wind direction 360 degrees.”
“KAL 017, are you sure? We have a fifteen-knot headwind, 215 degrees.”
“KAL 150, that can’t be right. We are on the same path.”
“Charkov, this is Tsaryov, over.”
Tsaryov, air combat controller from the Fighter Division, Combat Control Centre, sounded tense as he called for General Dimitriev, the commander of the Sokol Air Force Base.
Dimitriev grabbed the handset. “Tsaryov, this is Charkov. Have they made contact yet?”