Incident at Sakhalin: The True Mission of Kal 007

by Michel Brun

Book Overview

Offers a startling new explanation of the 1983 crash of Korean Air Flight 007, charging that instead of being shot down by the Soviets, the plane was caught in an air battle between the U.S. and the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1568580541
• ISBN13: 9781568580548
• Release Date: December 1995
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

U.S. Warmongering Gets A Black Eye

The simplistic notion that the Russians would cold-bloodedly shoot down an airliner because it was said to have marginally entered its airspace has always been too preposterous for me to believe, regardless of the circumstances. At the time of this incident in 1983, I didn't pay as much attention to it as I normally would have, due to other personal commitments. I followed the story only casually, but nevertheless came to the fairly quick conclusion that in all probability this was just another CIA adventure gone haywire, as others had before it. I suspected a good number of people in this world probably thought the same. Specifically, while I was gradually and only very grudgingly willing to entertain the notion that Russia perhaps did shoot down the airliner, I believed they probably would have only done so after extreme and deliberate provocation. Exactly what may have occurred with the airliner to cause such an extreme provocation I was never able to discern, but realized that most of the truth was obviously being hidden once again, so eventually I put the matter out of my mind. My CIA-provocation conclusion stuck with me for years - until I discovered Michel Brun's book. Upon reading this book, the various pieces of the evidence I had hitherto been aware of finally fell into place and made some sense, and I realized that the apparent truth was far worse than I had previously thought. Here is a synopsis of the author's conclusions, reached after more than ten years of research, most of it done by him in person in Japan: (EDIT, 15Mar06: For the sake of maintaining the suspense, I have deleted the previously listed five major conclusions the author has reached. Suffice it to say that these conclusions are nothing like those of other books on the KAL matter, such as Hersh's The Target Is Destroyed drivel, just as an example. The purpose of my review is to get people to read this excellent book and I've decided that maintaining the suspense does more in that regard as would giving the conclusions. Needless to say, said conclusions should raise the ire of any critical thinker who reads the book.) A few years ago I tried reading Seymour Hersh's _The Target Is Destroyed_, but was only able to labor my way through various parts, totaling about a third of the book. The stuff just didn't make any sense. In order to accept any of these earlier so-called conclusions proposed by various authors, one has to believe that the KAL pilots were nothing more than imbeciles, incapable of performing even the most basic and routine navigational duties - duties in which they previously had repeatedly demonstrated expertise. These kind of superficial and facetious explanations are hardly worth considering. _Incident At Sakhalin_ presents the most thorough explanation of what happened to KAL 007, and to the best of my knowledge has yet to be challenged in any of it's premises, let alone discounted. It is the only explanation I've come across in which a

post Cold War declassification

Only a year ago, I watched a History Channel presentation of the "official" story of KAL 007, whose flight-number designation seemed so cruelly appropriate. Shortly thereafter I was recommended "Incident at Sakhalin" by a person who had been heavily involved in US Cold War strategies of the eighties. "Read this," he insisted, "if you want to know how close to the brink of nuclear war we came." He refused to say more, but the book is an eye-opener. On 1-Sept. 1983, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, enroute to Seoul from New York via Anchorage, disappeared over the Sea of Japan. An extraordinary propaganda campaign and coverup ensued immediately following the events surrounding this incident -- on both sides of the Cold War Iron Curtain. In that perilous and paranoid time, the disaster nearly precipitated World War lll. To this day, the four governments involved in the Sakhalin Incident would prefer that the "official" conclusion remain in effect: that is, the passenger jet had innocently strayed off-course and was mistaken for the Cobra Ball spy plane which was detected at the same time in violation of Soviet airspace. That story generated much suspicion, which resulted in numerous Congressional investigations and accusations regarding CIA use of foreign civilian airliners for its surveillance missions over the USSR. Passengers were routinely and unwittingly used as pawns, a chilling revelation in itself. But Brun's book goes way beyond that. The author has impressive credentials; he is a French aviation expert and aircraft accident investigator, fluent in five languages. Moreover, his political neutrality ensures an unbiased presentation of the facts he had spent some ten years gathering. Several mysteries of the Sakhalin incident are widely known. For example, neither the wreck of the plane nor the remains of the 269 passengers has ever been found in the shallow area of the Sea of Japan over which KAL 007 was allegedly shot down. Meticulous research, aided by post-Cold War release of previously classified materials, reveals more of the disturbing story. In fact, Flight 007 was not lost over Sakhalin, but continued to fly and transmit messages for nearly an hour after other intruding aircraft were intercepted there by Soviet MiGs. The evidence shows that a poorly-conceived US intelligence and provocation operation launched a two-hour-long air battle with Soviet fighters over Sakhalin. In this battle, US Air Force and Navy aircraft and personnel were lost, and KAL 007 disappeared some 435 miles from where it was "officially" claimed to have crashed -- by means and reasons after all these years still unexplained. Boris Yeltsin, in his 17-June, 1992 speech to a joint session of the US Congress, mentioned Soviet-held American POWs in conjunction with the KAL 007 incident. This was interpreted by the American press as reference to the Korean and Vietnam eras; and the Reagan Administration offered no enlightenment to the public. We Amer

A Fantastic Read!

An excellent study of the KAL 007 shootdown. I was unable to put the book down and read it from cover to cover in one sitting. Anyone who has interest in military history/the cold war/aviation will be thrilled with the conclusions Brun discusses. Brun has obviously researched deeply for this project and he left me with no doubt as to what really happened to KAL 007.

Michel Brun's brilliant work contains merely two flaws.

An aviator and mariner, Michel Brun, through scientific methods, his personal collection of evidence, reviews of newspaper articles, probing of the Japanese military, and interviews with Soviet pilots, exposes how a nearly three hour air battle with the Russians was won by the Mig-31, and that KAL 007 was still in flight, and six minutes from safety, after the second hour of the air battle (that it wasn't directly involved in). The story of the manipulation of a civilian air flight, and the intentional provocation of the Soviet bear by Reagan's intentional over-flights of Pacific Russia by military aircraft, is the story of the century that you just can't miss! (Note: The satellite, mentioned on page 253 is Tracking and Data Relay Satellite One [Challenger's first mission], and Zellenyy Ostrov [Shibotsu-Jima] is part of the Habomai Islands, not the Kurils. Corrections courtesy: John Dugas).

Brun Is Right On Target..........

It's tough to find any holes in his comprehensive analysis. Excellent read, lots of detail to back up his theory. I'm came away believing that the U.S., USSR and Japan have blood on their hands. Shame on us for not demanding the truth.