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.

This movie is accurate in all respects and is an authentic reproduction of the actual events that occurred on 1 September, 1983, over the Sea of Okhotsk just southeast of the Sachalin Peninsula, in the Soviet Far East. I was one of only 12 people who were supposed to have full knowledge of these events, as the files were marked: "Top Secret"! It is quite clear that whoever made this movie had technical direction from one of the original 12 people involved. I rented the video "Tailspin" from a local supermarket video department, because it was aviation based and looked interesting. I never would have believed what it contained until it unfolded before my eyes! I was completely shocked as this film played out on my television screen! The complete details were far too secret and previously known to so few people. Every detail in this movie is accurate and authentic in every aspect. I am also amazed that the director had the ability to reproduce the details and situations exactly as they occurred, leaving out nothing and adding nothing, right down to the call-signs of the aircraft involved! In most "docu-drama's" directors/producers have the tendency to "embellish" beyond all reason/necessity, the accuracy and details of the actual events. This did not happen here! An excellent reproduction of actual events made into a great movie!

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.

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.

As Sgrignoli (whom I remember) said in his review, Larry was obviously not a part of what really happened on that fateful night of August 31 into September 1, 1983. I was a Russian Linguist and came in on the day shift. The movie does not accurately portray what happens in a SCIF (secure intel facility). I would add that I was one of the linguists later assigned in Wakkanai the next year. Even our analysts, as Sgrignoli points out, don't know the actual story. I was assigned in Wakkanai with the linguist who actually copied the shootdown; he told me how it really happened, but I won't go into that detail here. The movie is good for entertainment and to enlighten the common public about that significant event. I hope in this 35th anniversary year that more people will want to remember what happened and why it is important. I went on to leave the USAF after 13 years and did 8 years with the Army, finishing my time in 2004 in Ar Ramadi Iraq. I watched 6 men die (one of them my best buddy) and many others get shot to pieces for no good reason. Death of civilians and soldiers in any way is really so useless. There was no need for the KAL 007 to be shot down, nor was there a need for the "war" in Iraq.