Pilot Who Shot Down Korean Airliner Says He "Performed Duty"

Above, the New York Times headline on the downing of KAL 007.

The Mainichi Shimbun has posted an interesting article on the former Soviet pilot who shot down Korean Air Lines KAL 007 in September 1983.

Here's a snippet from the article:

MYKOP, Russia (Kyodo) -- The former Soviet fighter pilot who shot down a South Korean jumbo jet in 1983, killing 269 people on board, has said he carried out his duty as a military officer but that he has had frequent nightmares about the incident. 

Gennady Osipovich, 69, a former lieutenant colonel, made the comment in a recent interview with Kyodo News in Mykop, capital of southern Russia's Republic of Adygea, where he now lives. 

Osipovich was 38 when he flew one of the 10 Soviet fighters which were scrambled from various air bases in Russian Far East after a Korean Air Lines' Boeing 747 intruded into Soviet airspace over Sakhalin on Sept. 1, 1983.

Congressman Larry McDonald (D-GA), a conservative Democrat (are there any of those around today?), was a passenger aboard KAL 007. He was a member of the national advisory board of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) and had spoken weeks earlier in Los Angeles at the YAF National Convention at the Bonaventure Hotel. I attended the banquet that McDonald addressed.

To read the full article, go here.