Russian Stands by 1983 Order to Down Korean Airliner

MOSCOW â€”  The new chief of the Russian air force, who personally gave the order to shoot down a Korean Air Lines passenger plane 14 years ago, said Thursday that he still believes the action was justified even though 269 civilians aboard died in the incident.

Anatoly M. Kornukov, now the air force commander in chief who was then commander of a fighter division in the Soviet Far East, said he remains certain the South Korean airliner was on a spy mission over Soviet territory when it was shot down and crashed into the ocean.

“I will always be convinced that I gave the right order,� Kornukov said on the popular television interview show “Hero of the Day.� “Sometimes, in strategic operations, we had to sacrifice battalions to save the army. In the given situation, I am quite sure that this was a pre-planned action that pursued quite obvious goals.�

Kornukov, 56, a general, was appointed Tuesday by President Boris N. Yeltsin to take over the air force and head a difficult campaign to cut its size yet restore its combat readiness.

Yeltsin himself once branded the shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 as the greatest tragedy of the Cold War.

The Boeing 747 was flying from Anchorage to Seoul when it strayed off course Sept. 1, 1983, and flew over the heavily fortified Soviet Far East. The airliner was intercepted by a Soviet jet fighter, but the air force pilot never attempted to contact the commercial plane by radio. Instead, he fired bullets without tracers that the airliner pilot either never saw or ignored.

After the air force had tracked the progress of the airliner for more than two hours and it was on the verge of leaving Soviet air space, Kornukov gave the order to shoot it down.

Why the airliner was so far off course has never been clear. Soviet officials always maintained that the commercial plane was on a spy mission; some Russians involved in the episode believe to this day that no civilians were really aboard. While unrepentant over his role, Kornukov said living with the incident has not always been easy.

“The recollections bring back some unpleasant feelings,� he said. “At one point, I had to meet with relatives of the victims at the Foreign Ministry [in Moscow]. . . . Yes, those events left scars and added some gray hairs to my head.�

While critical of what he called Western “distortion of the facts,� Kornukov conceded that the Soviet Union was not truthful about the incident--which it did not even acknowledge until five days later. “There were different interpretations then,� he said. “Of course, not everything was presented in its true light because of very stiff censorship in the mass media.�

Kornukov takes command of the air force at a time of great upheaval in Russia’s armed forces. In the past eight months, Yeltsin has sacked his defense minister, his defense council secretary and the head of the navy, among others.

“Frankly speaking, I don’t feel great happiness,� said Kornukov, wearing rows of medals on his uniform. “I know it is a huge and heavy burden of the highest responsibility. I mean, we are in for hard times.�

But Pavel Felgengauer, a military expert with the influential newspaper Sevodnya, said the kind of resolution Kornukov demonstrated during the Korean Air Lines episode is just what is required now to carry out Yeltsin’s military program.

“The fact that he still believes he did the right thing when he ordered the shooting down of a civilian passenger plane signifies that finally the right person is found to lead the tough campaign of slashing the air force,� he said. “A butcher whose digestion is not affected by remorse is exactly the person needed.�

Sergei L. Loiko of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.