Moscow admits it: a fighter pilot shot down KAL 007, but says he never knew it was civilian

For five days after Korean Air Lines Flight 007 vanished over the Sea of Japan, Moscow said nothing about what happened to it. On September 6, 1983, the Soviet Union finally admitted its own aircraft had shot the airliner down, but insisted the crew who fired on it never knew it was a civilian Boeing 747. Soviet officials instead described the flight as a deliberate American reconnaissance mission that had strayed into sensitive airspace near Sakhalin. All 246 passengers and 23 crew, including U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald, had died in the September 1 attack…