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of the Russian Federation. They also made available recordings and transcripts of the communications between the pilots of the intercepting fighter aircraft and their ground controllers as well as the communications between the command centres The representatives of the United States made available certified copies and transcripts of the Anchorage A1C tapes, and the representatives of Japan made available the Tokyo ATC tape. In the course of the investigation, all practical steps were taken to confirm the authenticity of the communications tapes A comprehensive assessment of the physical characteristics of the CVR and the DFDR tapes and the information recorded thereon was made to ensure that they contained authentic records. The material on the communications tapes and the CVR and DFDR tapes showed no evidence of contradiction with known information and correlated well with other sources of data.
There was no evidence to suggest that the crew of flight KE 007 was aware that their aircraft was flying to the north of its planned route or that they knew of the presence of the intercepting fighter aircraft.
The DFDR record established that flight KE 007 maintained a constant magnetic heading froin soon after departure from Anchorage until the attack by the fighter aircraft. The maintenance of the constant magnetic heading was so accurate it could only have resulted from the
The CVR and the DFDR records also established that
y the USSR fighter aircraft.
that the
The evidence obtained supported the first hypothesis of these listed in the 1983 ICAO report, i.e.
The
maintenance of a constant magnetic heading and the resulting track deviation was due to the
hat the autopilot had either been lett in heading mode or had been switched to INS when the aircraft was beyond the range (7.5 NM) for the INS to capture the desired uack.
Concerning the interception and associated identification, signalling and communications the investigation found the following:
by USSR military aircraft over Kamchatka
1)
Interna
Penisula and made in the vicinity of Sakhalin Island
2)
The USSR command centre personnel assumed that KE 007 was a United States RC-135 aircraft.
Sakhalin Island
the USSR presumption that it was an RC-135 aircraft
wer
thus further contributing to
3)
However, the
interceptor pilot was instructed by his ground control to attempt to affract the attention of the crew of the intruding aircraft by
It was not possible to assess the distance of the interceptor aircraft from the intruder nor their relative positions when the interceptor's lights were flashed and the cannon fired.