<영문자료> LAST WITNESS OF KAL 007(2)

게재일   8612 현재위치   2/4 출 전   월조 조 회   1099   LAST WITNESS OF KAL 007(2)

Hersh's inference, a funny conception Park, Yong Man and other Korean Air Line pilots fiercely criticize Hersh's support of Ewing's theory. This theory is based upon Captain Chun's continued absence of his Captain's post. "To claim that Captain Chun had left his post even though I had personally spoken to him three hours after take-off…", says Captain Park with an ｅxpression of disbelief on his face. He then added that "It is the co-pilot's duty to make all such communications as reporting positions. To infer that Chun was away from the cockpit because his voice had not been heard in the communications with the ground controls is a very ignorant one." The author, on October 30th of last year, was in the cockpit of a Korean Air Lines jumbo during a flight form Anchorage to Seoul. The former Prime Minister Nam, Duck Woo was in the first class compartment at the time. The jumbo was delayed at takeoff for about an hour due to some repairs to the wing. A member of the passenger compartment crew came forward and said "Sir, Prime Minister Nam seems to be anxious, won't you (captain) come back and explain to him?" The Captain abruptly refused by saying "I don't have time now." Park said that although there are pilots who are good hosts, there are no KAL pilots who would let hospitality get in the way of operating the aircraft. There were pilots who became enraged at Hersh's assumption that Korean Captains would greet a prestigious person such as a U.S. Congressman and felt that such an opinion shows his subconscious feeling of superiority towards orientals. A pilot said the Captains would only greet passengers at the airplane entrance, even if it had been a foreign head of state. Captains would not go back to greet the head of state during flight. Assuming that they changed course at will to save fuel is "simply a laughing matter" says Captain Park. Paying special attention to saving fuel which takes up approximately 30 percent of an airline company's overhead is not only Korean Air Line's but the whole airline industry's interest. But, there no pilots to show loyalty to firm by breaking regulations such as deviating from course. Thus, the notion of making a mistake in the course of punching in illegal shortcut coordinates into the INS is a brilliant idea, and only that. There are four recorded cases of instances where wrong coordinates had been punched in for takeoff coordinates. But, in all of these instances, the problems were resolved by the aircraft relanding or other appropriate measures after the errors were discovered shortly after takeoff. one Captain said when the warning lights on the INS come on it would be the procedure of a KAL pilot to start from the beginning again and not resolve the problem by turning the light switch to off as Hersh had alleged. Park says, "Ewing's inference is merely a desk theory in which the answer (007's flight chart) had already been provided and he had attempted to make up the question. An original notion with lowest results," comments Park. Ewing's theory is combination of shortcuts for saving fuel and making an error in punching in the INS. It turned out to be a most radical fabrication in order to come up with the too perfect answer. It seems that Hersh, while interviewing the U.S., Soviet and Japanese side, had completely left out the most important Korean Air Lines and Captain Park who were directly involved in the incident. Because it was an off-target investigation and groundless inference, the whole reasoning structure is toppled by such testimonies as Park, Yong Man's who was directly involved in the incident. Not only in Hersh's but all of the books and articles coming from abroad regarding 007, have been written without considering Korean Air Lines operation system, the disposition of its pilots and the testimony of Park, Yong Man. even an attempt to do so had not been made. A 007 theory without prior research of the psychology of pilots is worthless. 007 carried out a risky flight In solving the 007 mystery, the toughest test would be the Inertial Navigation System (INS). It is hardly possible for all three INS's to simultaneously breakdown during flight and also, it is difficult to believe that all three crew members misoperated the INS for five hours. An ICAO report which came out at the end of 1983 suggested two theories on the cause of the deviation of flight path. the first theory is that, the pilots when using the flight selection switch, put it into the compass navigation Heading Mode instead of the INS Mode. Thus, the aircraft 007 flew a compass flight of 246 degrees from the beginning, and did not know of this to the end. The second theory is that, when punching in the takeoff coordinates, they put in 139 degrees west which was 10 degrees off to the actual longitude of Anchorage, and since the pilots operated the INS not aware of this, the INS operated the aircraft as if the takeoff point was 300 aeronautical miles to the east, and flew 007 to the north. In order to believe these two theories, one must assume that the three pilots had all been asleep for 5 hours and 30 minutes or that they were all away from their posts throughout the whole time. KAL pilots point out that, had any one of the tree pilots looked at the controls in front of them or the INS indicators next to them, they would have caught these two errors immediately. The ICAO report on Hersh's theory have in common the assumption that "KAL pilots are stupid and lazy". The ICAO Technical Subcommittee submitted to the general meeting that the report from ICAO's accident investigation team from a technical viewpoint did not have enough grounds for supporting such theories. Park, Yong Man's theory is one which had never been considered by ICAO or foreign investigators. They key point lies with "why 007 pilots intentionally throughout the whole flight, or during a portion of the flight, used the compass navigation (heading mode) and not the INS. "Without the black box, the most important material proof of this incident is the ground radar's flight path record of 007's flight. If one would observe the flight path one would notice that it was not a INS navigation." The U.S. disclosed 350 aeronautical miles between Anchorage and Bethel which was recorded by U.S. ground radars. Japanese journalist Yannaida Kunio, an expert in aircraft accidents said this is his second book entitled "Destroyed" after he had closely analyzed this flight path record. "Immediately after take-off, 007 received instructions to head for Bethel, but instead of getting on regulation course it flew approximately three miles to the north of the course, and this gap continued to widen and 49 minutes after take-off, when passing Bethel, it was approximately 12 aeronautical miles(approximately 22 kilometers) off to the north. For approximately 10 minutes into the take-off, the pilot tried to maneuver the nose onto the flight path without the help of the INS but gradually started to veer to the north." Park said "I took off 14 minutes later and turned on the switch to INS mode which is the normal procedure after receiving directives to head for Bethel. The aircraft would then get on to the flight path. This is the common procedure of KAL pilots. But looking at the flight path of 007, it made flight turns which is not the typical course of the straight INS navigation. Coincidentally, the radio guidance facility(VOR) at Anchorage was malfunctioning. When the VOR is not functioning it is all the more reason for using the INS. Why then did they make such insecure flight? one can not help thinking that circumstances did not permit 007 to use the INS or that it was malfunctioning." Other veteran pilots of KAL also comment "We can observe that 007 even coming within three miles of the flight path, it was still unable to get onto the flight path. If you approach the flight path. If you approach the flight path within 7.5 miles and turn on the INS, it would then automatically get onto the flight path. It would then seem that the INS was not in proper operation during the flight." There have been no disclosures of flight records which would tell us what route 007 had taken for two hours 500 kilometers east of Kamchatka. The Soviet Union has disclosed the flight path records for the flight between 500 kilometers east of Kamchatka until the point of destruction. This is reliable since this flight path matches with the flight paths provided by U.S. and Japanese radars(or satellites) and the electronic surveillance systems. This flight record indicates that there was a gradual turn to the left between the eastern sky of Kamchatka and also above Sakhalin. "Such a turn under the just not possible. This additional evidence shows that at least between these two points, Captain Chun maneuvered the aircraft on his own on compass heading mode without the use of the INS." Korean Air Lines INS trouble Park, Yong Man said the problem was why 007 pilots decided to force a compass navigation dating back to the days when Lindberg was crossing the Atlantic; even having to turn off the state of the art INS. The INS without any outside help can guide aircraft and missiles accurately to their targets, and is a magician who guided rockets to the moon. But, it has a weakness. If you take off without discovering that take-off coordinates had been entered wrong, there is no way this error can be corrected in mid-air. You must land again. And, in order to do so, one must dump several dozen tons of fuel in order to achieve landing weight limit. One year prior to the 007 incident, a KAL DC-10 was getting ready for take-off. Captain Woo was a bit rushed that day. Flight briefing ran late and clearance for take-off came late as well. He entered the cockpit as the passengers had begun to board. The co-pilot and engineer were checking the coordinates they had entered into the INS. Normally, the Captain has to reinspect these coordinates, but with take-off time approaching, and the co-pilot assuring him that all things were in order, he took off for Anchorage and turned the INS on. The aircraft headed south in the opposite direction. He found through examination that the longitude for the take off coordinates had been entered wrong. Captain Woo had to dump 45 tons of jet fuel which costs more than 10 million won, over the ocean sky and reland. one cannot use the compass navigation because of the severe deflection of earth's magnetism on the north pole route between Paris and Anchorage. Captain Woo was grounded for 20 days after returning to Korea. At about the same time, a similar thing happened to a KAL aircraft after takeoff from Honolulu. The cockpit crew concentrating only on the HON portion of HONOLULU, mistakingly entered the similar name coordinates of HONG KONG and took off for Seoul. The aircraft with its INS turned on, started to head in the wrong direction. They had to dump several dozen tons of fuel and make an emergency landing. These were two cases where the pilots prepared to receive punishment, prevented a much more serious accident. Fearing punishment, risky flight with the INS turned off According to Park, Yong Man, there was an accident one and a half year ago prior to the 007 accident. A Korean Air Lines DC-10 passenger aircraft was to fly from Anchorage to Seoul. The co-pilot let a student pilot (a pilot receiving training for changing aircraft types or routes) enter the INS coordinates, and the Captain neglected to reinspect. After takeoff from Anchorage, and after turning the INS on, he found out that the aircraft was headed in a totally different direction. The Captain realizing that the takeoff coordinates were wrong, then turned the INS off. According to regulations he should dump the fuel and reland. The co-pilot said, "Captain, sir, I will claim responsibility. Let's just continue," and prodded the Captain. The Captain consented and continued on a compass flight and was lucky. After rising above the clouds into higher altitude, they discovered the jet clouds of a JAL plane heading for Japan. It was day time, so the KAL DC-10 was able to follow the JAL plane safely to Seoul. But according to KAL there have been 57 incidents since 1980 where the fuel was dumped and the aircraft returned to port, and that only two of these were disciplined and even then because of the pilots neglecting to follow regulations and not because of dumping fuel. In October of 1985, when a JAL aircraft veered from course, there was much stricter punitive action where the captain was demoted to co-pilot. It is KAL's opinion that, there could not be, and cannot even imagine the existence of pilots who would jeopardize hundreds of lives for the fear of punishment. If 007 flew without the use of the INS, this may be construed in many different aspects. Park says it can be first construed that 007 knew of problems with the INS, but continued the as did the DC-10. Aside the case where the DC-10 "misentered the takeoff coordinates", there could be another reason for not using the INS. After entering the takeoff coordinates and checkpoint coordinates on the ground, the pilot has to wait for approximately 15 minutes at stand still until the lights turn to green. After the lights turn to green, the switch is then turned to "Navigation". This means that the internal systems of the INS is ready to function. If the aircraft is moved or the switch in turned to navigation before the lights turn to green, the entered coordinates are messed up and have to be reentered all over again. The Captain, being in a rush to pushback,(placing the aircraft at the end of the runway) moves the aircraft before operation preparation of INS is completed, then reentering the coordinates over again would delay take-off for about 20 minutes, and this would also mean that 015's take-off would also be delayed for more than 20 minutes. After returning to Seoul, the Captain must submit a written explanation for such a delay. Park says this is also a case where a risky flight is tempted. Park said that this possibility is more likely than the "misentering of take-off coordinates" possibility. When looking at the flight path of 007 immediately after take-off, there is no sign of the sudden turn to an unexpected direction due to misentering the take-off coordinates. It flew generally on the right path slowly beginning to deviate. Signs of hesitancy and yet not completely giving up appears on the flight path. Unconfident about the shaken INS and thus, shifting over to a heading mode then back to INS mode is evident. There is no concrete data on how the shaking of INS before the preparation phase would affect the aircraft during flight. According to case studies by JAL, all instruments of INS would show normal signs when in fact the aircraft is gradually veering to one side, and this makes it difficult for the crew to quickly pick up this course deviation. It is their conclusion that such an internal problem with the INS has a trap where the pilot thinks, strange, strange and yet is caused to believe "it seems to be generally on the right track." But, other pilots of KAL contradict this by saying that they would not suffer for 10 hours for something which could be corrected in 20 minutes. Flight course with temptation It is virtually impossible to fly the risky Paris-Anchorage and Honolulu-Seoul flight paths without the assistance of the INS. The degree of deflection due to earth magnetism is severe and also, there are no land or oceanic landmarks nor any navigational guiding facilities. Between Anchorage and Seoul, there are numerous islands and ground air navigational guidance facilities. There are also many landmarks such as the Kuril Islands, Kamchatka Peninsula and the Shemya Island. There are many pilots who believe they can fly the North Pacific Route in safety without much danger using these objects. Captain Chun, who had been a fighter pilot, had 10,623 hours of flight time and had flown the Anchorage-Seoul route 83 times. He has extensive experience in navigation without the use of the INS, and is a safe pilot who had been chosen as the pilot of the Presidential. Airplane. Co-pilot Son, Dong Hui as well as Captain Chun, is an elite pilot who just after 1980 had flown the route 30 times. It was the opinion of many pilots as well as Park, Yong Man, that if they were to receive such disciplinary actions such as having to submit a written explanation or become grounded, it is not beyond their mentality or resort to taking a bit of a risk. Re landing due to improper use of the INS not only costs the company over several millions of wons, but also would follow them around like a dishonorable tag. For Captain Chun, this could also mean that he would no longer be able to fly the Presidential Plane. It is only natural that to these proud and ambitious pilots, the risky flight seems only too tempting.