Re: KAL007 Coldwar Mystery

John Schilling kirjoitti:
> In article <ds7emv$g8r$1@oravannahka.helsinki.fi>, Harri Tavaila says...

Snip

>>If so, would Vincennes not have broadcasted their challenge on that
>>frequency? And wouldn't such challenge thus have been unheared or at
>>least categorized as something directed to other traffic by the crew of
>>the Airbus?
>
> The Vincennes broadcast its challenges on two radio frequencies, 121.5 MHz
> and 243 MHz. These are frequencies specifically set aside for this sort of
> communication, precisely so that there will be no guesswork involved, and
> the Airbus should have been monitoring 121.5 MHz.

According to

        http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/dnetGOjg/030788.htm
        which is based on sources:
        ICAO Adrep Summary 3/88 (#1)
        ICAO Circular 260- AN/154 (27-51)
        Aviation Disasters / D. Gero (200- 202)

the IR655 - being a civilian plain - did not monitor the Military Air
Distress frequency of 243 MHz . Seven challenges were issued on this
frequency.

According to the same source three challenges were issued on
International Air Distress frequency of 121.5 MHz once the plane was at
the distance of 40 miles (cutting it rather close I think).
Unfortunately the source does not say how the challenges were
formulated; expressions 'Iranian fighter' or 'Iranian F-14' are quoted
and could hardly be expected to be replied to. Expression 'Iranian
aircraft' possibly could - if it was the first expression to be used,
though it leaves open the question of how one should react to such an
open identification. If it was followed by something like: 'approcahing
radio beacon xx from direction yy at distance zz' a reply might possibly
be forthcoming - in about a minute or so, as I should think that it
might take some time to verify the applicability of the definition. Any
reference to the ship would of course be unidentifiable to a civilian plane.

Of course if the first challenges were issued to 'a fighter' and the
subsequent to 'a plane' the only reaction might be to continue to listen
   as the dialogue/monologue would quite apparently be directed to
somebody else. But then, that would be sloppy radio protocol.

> The cockpit voice recorder from the Airbus was never recovered, so we don't
> know whether the warning was recieved and ignored or not recieved at all.

snip

A pity.

While searching the web I also ran into a claim that during the attack
the Vincennes was actually on Iranian waters and the US committee
looking into the incident had to edit out a couple of islands from the
maps in order to be able to claim otherwise. I think this sounds rather
implausible but would be interested to verify this. Unfortunately I
haven't been able to locate the report on line: if anybody should know
how to find this material (one would assume it is open for public
consumption) I should be most interested.

H Tavaila
Received on Tue Feb 7 21:00:12 2006