Tailspin: Behind the Korean Airliner Tragedy

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.

Obviously, LarryB100 was nowhere near the action that night/morning or else he would never have said that the film was "accurate in all respects". I, however, was on duty when we told the world about what happened. I was a Senior Reporter - though not the ONLY one (there were two of us certified and on duty at the time) (the Senior Reporter is the guy portrayed by "Sgt Duffy" - the guy who says, "It's a CRITIC."). Anyway, I found the film interesting in that the basic "premise" is somewhat accurate, but there were definitely a lot of assumptions which were not accurate...and I'll spell those out here:

(1) First off, the film makes the viewer believe that we caught the activity right from the beginning (i.e. the operator starts typing away on his console and they know that there is a fighter chasing a target). That did not happen. The mid-shift had the activity, but they analyzed it as "practice" and not "real world". It wasn't until the day-shift (our team) came on duty that we began to receive queries as to whether we had any information on the Korean airliner. In going back through the intercept, we found the activity, analyzed it as a shootdown, and reported it as such (i.e. CRITIC). As the film states, we issued CRITICs, and NSA canceled them...again and again. Again, the activity was initially "missed", but was caught by us on the day-shift. (2) There are no Air Force women walking around serving coffee! (3) When Secretary Schultz was giving his speech on TV, we did NOT have TVs in the S&W (Surveillance & Warning) Center back in those days. The only media we had was a radio for FEN (Far East Network) (a radio affiliate of the AFRTS (Armed Forces Radio & Television Service)) and another radio (R-390) that we used to listen to a rock station in Saipan. (4) The Flight Commander in the film was a Captain (O-3), but the actual Flight Commander was a 2nd Lieutenant (O-1). (5) The Flight Commander is fully aware of what a CRITIC is and the ramifications of sending one with incorrect information. We certainly don't need an S&W Supervisor to explain to the Flight Commander was a CRITIC is. And, for the Senior Report ("Sgt Duffy") to speak to the Flight Commander in that tone of voice is certainly unacceptable, and did not happen!!! In short, the guy who portrayed "Sgt Duffy" went way overboard with his "dramatic" acting!!! Had a good laugh at that. (6) The tapes from Wakkanai were sheer luck! The guy up at Wakkanai was performing his routine transcriptions (taking the intercept from the tape and transcribing them to print copy), and as he was doing that, he happened to look up at the VU meter and saw it flicking back and forth, so he hit the RECORD button to catch whatever it was and continued transcribing. It wasn't until the morning when that tape was listened to and they realized they had something which strongly correlated to the activity at Misawa. That was when the tapes were deemed critical to have them immediately flown from Wakkanai to Misawa. (7) When Wakkanai calls down to the S&W Center, "Sgt Duffy" makes a comment to the S&W Supervisor, "Be careful, it's an open line." That is plain ludicrous! First off, it wasn't an open line (it was SECURE). Secondly, the phone was situated in a Hotline Booth, not on the desk. Thirdly, the Senior Reporter does NOT need to tell the S&W Supervisor that he needs to "Be careful!" when this is ingrained as second nature in the S&W Supervisor. "Sgt Duffy" makes it appear that HE is the all-knowing, and the S&W Supervisor and Flight Commander are morons. Ridiculous. But entertaining, nonetheless. Although "Sgt Duffy" was portraying MY position during the event, I had to confess to my family, "No, I wasn't that arrogant!!!"

Larry, I'm not sure where you were during this incident or what part you played during the real world activities that night - but to say that the film was "accurate" and "authentic" certainly did NOT reflect what REALLY happened in OUR Surveillance & Warning Center that night/morning. For those of us who were on-duty, this film certainly is "entertaining" in terms of what REALLY happens and what outsiders THINK happens in an intelligence unit.

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)

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.

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.