Video: 'What REALLY happened Korean Flight 007??'

(Thursday, September 1, 1983, 6:26 a.m. Sakhalin time; during the Cold War) — Korean Air Lines Flight 007, a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska, was shot down today by a Soviet Union Su-15 interceptor near Moneron Island when the commercial aircraft entered Soviet airspace; all 269 on board were killed including U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald.

The Boeing 747 airliner was en route from Anchorage to Seoul, but owing to a navigational mistake made by the crew, the airliner drifted from its original planned route and flew through Soviet-prohibited airspace.

The Soviet Air Forces treated the unidentified aircraft as an intruding U.S. spy plane, and destroyed it with air-to-air missiles, after firing warning shots.

Video: 'WKorean Airlines Flight 007 Shot Down After Fatal Mistake | Mayday | Wonder'

The Korean airliner eventually crashed in the sea near Moneron Island west of Sakhalin in the Sea of Japan. All 269 passengers and crew aboard were killed.

The Soviet Union found the wreckage under the sea two weeks later on September 15 and found the flight recorders in October, but this information was kept secret by the Soviet authorities until after the country’s collapse in 1991.

The Soviet Union initially denied knowledge of the incident, but later admitted to shooting down the aircraft, claiming that it was on a MASINT spy mission.

Video: 'Cold War - The Korean Air Lines 007 Soviet Air Space Incident'

The Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union said it was a deliberate provocation by the United States to probe the Soviet Union’s military preparedness, or even to provoke a war.

The U.S. accused the Soviet Union of obstructing search and rescue operations.

The Soviet Armed Forces suppressed evidence sought by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) investigation, such as the flight recorders, which were released ten years later, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The incident was one of the tensest moments of the Cold War and resulted in an escalation of anti-Soviet sentiment, particularly in the United States.

As a result of the incident, the United States altered tracking procedures for aircraft departing from Alaska, and President Ronald Reagan issued a directive making the American satellite-based radio navigation Global Positioning System freely available for civilian use, once it was sufficiently developed, as a common good.