Tailspin: Behind the Korean Airliner Tragedy

Most of the world reacted with shock when the news that the Soviets had shot down a civilian airliner, killing everybody on board. This dramatized documentary tries to manifest that unfortunate circumstances and wrongful programming of the on-board navigation computer made the Korean Airlines airliner stray way into Soviet territory. They've even found the pilot of another KAL jet which was right behind KAL 007 on that fateful night.

This movie does an excellent job and I've always considered it an excellent documentary, which gives a great view of what went on in the rafters inside the US government.

However, the trail of clues the movie follows have now been proven more or less completely useless by a great author and former airline pilot: Michel Brun, who has released the magnificent book "Incident at Sakhalin" (Published by Four Walls Eight Windows, ISBN 1-56858-054-1). In here we follow his brilliant detective work, in which he walks around on the beaches of Japan gathering debris from the airliner in positions they couldn't possibly have wound up, had is been shot down where the US and the Soviet Union claims it was shot down.

He proceeds to Tokyo's international airport where he obtains a copy of the radio traffic tape from that night, in which he discovers that KAL 007 was transmitting strange radio messages for another 45 minutes after allegedly having been shot down.

He also gets a hold of radar observations from the northern tip of Japan, in which he discovers that a huge air battle took place that night over the Soviet island Sakhalin, during which at least 10 American military aircraft were shot down by Russian fighters.

Interested? Do a web search for "Incident at Sakhalin", and head for pages mentioning Michel Brun and/or his assistant John Keppel.

This oddball flick showed up on late-nite programming fairly often in the early 90's. The demise of the Soviet Union--and it's loss as a defense industry boogie-man--has made red-scare films pretty passé. This effort by screenwriter Brian Phelan attempted to walk the line between bashing the Russkies and revealing US intelligence gathering techniques.

I found the film interesting for the latter aspect, as I once worked aboard the ferret planes depicted orbiting the Soviet coastline. Overall, I found the script in some cases surprisingly accurate in certain details about comint interception practices. Of course, there are the almost obligatory instances of scenery chewing for dramatic emphasis: notably the scene in the ops center where the resident linguistic "expert" has to interpret a communication intercept of critical importance, as if there is only one such person on station.

The actual details of what happened that night over Sakhalin Island will probably never be fully laid out in public. Wild speculation has been put forward by several authors as unvarnished truth. From my own experience, which definitely included the use of airborne surveillance aircraft to intentionally provoke Soviet air defenses, I have to think that was a major element in the affair that was never, for obvious reasons, fully examined. The political climate of Washington at that time, the eagerness of hotshot intelligence officers to boost their own careers at the cost of lives on the other side of the globe also goes a long way toward explaining the reckless decision-making portrayed in the film.

Larry, you stating you are one of 12 people who knew the details is so far off it is amazing you would post that here where you know many people who probably had more access to the information than you would see your review. I was an intelligence analyst assigned to the analysis and reporting office at the headquarters for ESC on Kelly AFB in Texas and helped with follow on analysis of this situation. There were many more than 12 people with access and involvement in this high level of interest situation throughout the U.S. intelligence community. Multiple U.S. intelligence units from around the Pacific and Alaskan theaters participated in the reporting of this incident. It was further reviewed and analyzed by theater and national level intelligence agencies so hundreds of people were involved in the intelligence efforts. So Larry in saying you were one of 12 people with access to the Top Secret information is doubtful, as most of this information was classified higher than Top Secret.

The movie does make a decent attempt at showing how some of the U.S. intelligence gathering efforts work. Politically the movie does reflect the tension that existed between the Soviet Union and U.S. in peacetime intelligence collection efforts.

The movie is interesting from its perspective of an outsider looking at U.S. intelligence gathering methods.

A very interesting document, this movie deals with the accident that occurred to flight KAL007 in the 80's, during cold war between East & West.

If you like aeronautics and inquiries, you'll love this movie ! The explanations given for this crash have been gathered during year-long attempts to discover the truth, and since then, new elements have appeared (role of flight KAL013 that was flying behind 007, orthodromic theory, even JATO possibility etc.) This is why we are really looking forward to discovering the brand new version that is going to be released (I learned that on TV evening news with a man called "Gove" announcing that project for 2006)

At the time when I saw this film (16 years ago) I wasn't into docudramas yet, nor did I know much about the incident depicted. As I watched it, my respect grew for its makers. The manner in which the film is done is dry, yet very inciting to watch further, much like a smart, well crafted thriller. One could see that a lot of detailed information was acquired in order to make it. The acting is great, the presentation of the facts and the incidents feels clean, accurate, objective and unemotional, yet not dulling the senses, but allowing the viewers to experience their own emotions as they watch. It was the first film that taught me the importance of restraint and sobriety when depicting a tragic story, and how much more effective that can be when those who tell it don't season it with extra emotions and don't let personal views nuance the facts. Kinda like the stuff of real journalism: true objectivity.

I gave the film a 9 because the tenth point I usually reserve for either art films or great films with social/political connotation, but in its genre this film could just as well be a 10, in spite of the fact that it's a bit outdated.