• theareciboincident@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 months ago

    Historical context: the KAL007 incident immediately followed the intrusion and activity of a USAF Boeing RC-135 recon plane that was in literally the same spot earlier that day. This aircraft has the same radar signature as KAL007.

    The Soviets, in a hurry to shoot the spy plane signature hundreds of miles off civilian air routes while it was still in their territory (the second time the unresponsive KAL007 crossed it during the flight), shot it down.

    Yknow, as regularly and justifiably happens with spy balloons today.

    Russia does enough bad shit without the propaganda, going full onion just makes it seem laughable (not saying you are, this is just an extremely common take).

    • khannie@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Yes tensions were high at the time but it was a gigantic series of fuck ups that it vaguely sounds like you’re trying to excuse?

      The radar signature wasn’t an issue. They flew right up to it, knew it was a passenger plane (albeit possibly disguised), lied their asses off about various aspects of it, held back the flight recorder after they recovered it and initially denied having done it at all.

      Later we began to lie about small details: the plane was supposedly flying without running lights or strobe light, that tracer bullets were fired, or that I had radio contact with them on the emergency frequency of 121.5 megahertz.