TNAG-2856-FCO40-4109-Hong-Kong-compensation-claim-regarding-Korean-Air-Lines-Flig-1993 — Page 110

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1.16.1.4

The target then reduced speed to "about 400 km/h". The interceptor pilot was again ordered to destroy the target. At that stage he was above the target, but dropped altitude, armed the missiles, and obtained lock-on. He explained that the first missile was fired when he was approximately 5 km from the target. At that stage he could more clearly see the aircraft, but could not identify its type. as Soviet pilots did not "study" foreign civilian aircraft. The flashing lights (rotating beacon) of the aircraft were on. He said that he had no idea that it was a passenger aircraft.

1.16.1.5

The interceptor pilot stated that the first missile hit near the tail, while the second missile took off half the left wing of the aircraft.

1.16.1.6 The interceptor pilot's statement that the second missile took off half of the left wing was probably incorrect. The missiles were fired with a two-second interval and would have detonated at an equal interval. The first missile detonated at 18:26:02 hours. The last radio transmissions from KE 007 to Tokyo Radio were between 18:26:57 and 18:27:15 hours using HF 1. The HF 1 radio aerial of the aircraft was positioned in the left wing tip, suggesting that the left wing tip was intact at this time. Also, the aircraft's manoeuvres after the attack did not indicate extensive damage to the left wing.

1.16.1.7

The USSR Air Defence recordings showed that the interceptor pilot was airborne at 17:42 hours, not 18:00 hours as he recalled in the interview.

1.16.1.8

The representatives of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation stated that at that time the cannons of interceptor aircraft were routinely loaded with a mixture of rounds so that every fourth or fifth was a tracer.

1.16.2

Details of the missiles used in the attack

1.16.2.1

The SU-15 aircraft that carried out the attack was fitted with two R-98 air-to-air missiles. One missile had a heat-seeking guidance with a passive system which locked on to a source of infra-red radiation such as the exhaust of the aircraft engines. The heat-seeking missile had a contact fuse. The other missile had a semi-active radar guidance. The radar guided missile had a proximity fuse that detonated the warhead by a non-contact radio detonator at a range of 50 metres.

1.16.2.2

The missiles had a maximum range of 18 km and a maximum velocity of 2 000 km/h. The launch mass was 230 kg with a 20 kg high explosive warhead designed to produce 1 400 steel fragments, each of 3 to 18 grams, which were dispersed over an 18° to 21° angle from the forward direction of flight.

1.16.2.3 The heat-seeking missile was fired first at a range of 8 to 11 km from the target with the radar-guided missile following two seconds later. The time of missile flight to the target was about 30 seconds.

1.16.3

Incidents involving deviation from track due to unintentional maintenance of constant magnetic heading

1.16.3.1

A total of 101 reports involving INS navigation errors made to the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System during two periods, one between September 1978 and May 1983, and the other between January 1986 and November 1992, were reviewed. Almost twelve per cent of the incidents