Chief of Russian Air Force shot down KAL craft

MOSCOW, Jan 23: Russian Air Force acknowledged today that its new chief was the commander who ordered a pilot to shoot down a South Korean jetliner off Sakhalin island in 1983, killing all 269 people aboard.

Gen Anatoly Kornukov, who previously had served as Moscow air defense chief, was appointed by President Boris Yeltsin on Tuesday. Russian newspapers first reported his involvement in the Korean airlines shoot-down yesterday.Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev today tried to play down Kornukov’s responsibility for the incident. “He was just executing orders,” Sergeyev said at a news conference. “He was given orders, (and) he carried them out.”The destruction of KAL Flight 007 plunged US-Soviet relations to a new low. The Soviet government claimed the civilian jetliner was on a spy mission, used by American special services for their dirty aims.

Gen Kornukov was commander of air defences on Sakhalin island, which lies just north of Japan and was the site of a top-secret Soviet defense installation.On September one, 1983, Soviet pilots spotted a KAL Boeing 747 that had strayed off course on a route from Alaska to Seoul. The Soviets suspected the jet was spying on Sakhalin. After a pilot fired warning shots that failed to change the airliner’s course, Gen Kornukov ordered him to shoot down the plane, Alexander Drobyshevsky, a Russian Air Force spokesman, confirmed today.