{"id":12787438,"date":"2026-08-16T11:51:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T09:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/korean-air-lines-flight-902-frozen-lake-1978\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T11:52:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T09:52:28","slug":"korean-air-lines-flight-902-frozen-lake-1978","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/fr\/korean-air-lines-flight-902-frozen-lake-1978\/","title":{"rendered":"Shot Down, Then Landed on a Frozen Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style><p>On a freezing April night in 1978, a South Korean airliner full of sleeping passengers wandered a thousand miles off course, over one of the most secret corners of the Soviet Union, and was hit by an air-to-air missile. What happened next is one of the most extraordinary survival stories of the Cold War: a crippled Boeing 707, two dead, and a captain who set his airliner down, in the dark, on a frozen lake.<\/p><p>This is <strong>Korean Air Lines Flight 902<\/strong>, the near-forgotten prelude to the far deadlier KAL 007 five years later. Almost everyone aboard lived, and they lived because of cool heads, a little luck, and one very skillful piece of flying.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px;border-radius:8px;margin:24px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:18px;color:#111\">Informations cl\u00e9s<\/p><table style=\"width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:15px\"><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;font-weight:600;color:#333;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\">Vol<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;color:#444\">Korean Air Lines Flight 902, Paris to Seoul via Anchorage<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;font-weight:600;color:#333;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\">Date<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;color:#444\">20 April 1978<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;font-weight:600;color:#333;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\">A\u00e9ronef<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;color:#444\">Boeing 707-321B, HL7429<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;font-weight:600;color:#333;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\">\u00c0 bord<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;color:#444\">109 passengers and crew<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;font-weight:600;color:#333;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\">Cause of diversion<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;color:#444\">Navigation error, then loss of the gyro guidance system<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;font-weight:600;color:#333;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\">Interceptor<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;color:#444\">Soviet Sukhoi Su-15TM<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;font-weight:600;color:#333;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\">Killed<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;color:#444\">Two passengers, struck by missile shrapnel<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;font-weight:600;color:#333;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\">Atterrissage<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;color:#444\">Forced landing on frozen Lake Korpiyarvi, Soviet Karelia<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;font-weight:600;color:#333;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\">Survivants<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 12px;color:#444\">107, rescued and released within days<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Wrong Turn Over the Pole<\/h2><p>Flight 902 left Paris on the afternoon of 20 April, bound for Anchorage and then Seoul, on the long polar route over the top of the world. For Captain Kim Chang Kyu it was his first time flying it; his navigator, Lee Kun Shik, had done it more than 120 times. Over Greenland the aircraft passed beyond radar coverage and the crew fell back on an old-fashioned gyro guidance system.<\/p><p>Then something went wrong. The 707 began an enormous, gradual right-hand arc, swinging east and then south over the Barents Sea. The turn was so slow that the crew did not notice for a long time. By the time the navigator realised they were badly lost, none of his usual radio beacons would answer, and the aircraft had drifted into the airspace over Murmansk, home to the Soviet Northern Fleet and some of the most sensitive military sites on Earth.<\/p>\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img data-opt-id=398726298  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/kal-902-flight-path-map.png\" alt=\"The intended polar route and the arc that took KAL 902 into Soviet airspace\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The planned polar route, and the great right-turning arc that carried KAL 902 over the Kola Peninsula. Image: Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/93urphXNVLI\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A Red Star at 35,000 Feet<\/h2><p>It was the copilot, S.D. Cha, who first saw it: a fighter, flying formation in the darkness at the same height and speed. Through the gloom he made out a red star on its tail. It was a Soviet Su-15 interceptor, and on the ground a tense argument was already under way about what to do with the intruder.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;The fighter pilot, Alexander Bosov, correctly identified the plane as a South Korean civilian airliner and reportedly tried to convince his superiors that it was not a threat. But the commander of Soviet air defense for the area, in a panic that it could be a trick, ordered the airliner shot down anyway.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>George L. Rueckert<\/strong> &mdash; U.S. consular officer who handled the passenger turnover, writing in Aviation History<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n<p>The captain later said that the moment he saw the red star, he switched on his lights and began to descend to show he understood he was in Soviet airspace. It made no difference. The Su-15 fired two missiles. The first missed. The second tore off the tip of the left wing and sent shrapnel ripping through the cabin, killing two passengers, a salesman from Seoul and a coffee-shop owner from Yokohama, and injuring several more. The cabin lost pressure at 35,000 feet.<\/p>\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img data-opt-id=1924620095  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/sukhoi-su-15tm-interceptor.jpg\" alt=\"A Sukhoi Su-15TM interceptor\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A Sukhoi Su-15TM, the interceptor type that fired on KAL 902. Its second missile took off the 707 wingtip. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #d32f2f;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;We felt we are going to be dead. We are falling down, down, down.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Seiko Shiozaki, aged 28<\/strong> &mdash; Passenger, from the diary she kept during the attack<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Landing on the Ice<\/h2><p>Captain Kim threw the wounded 707 into a dive, dropping from 35,000 feet to around 4,000 in minutes, then levelled off. The aircraft pulled hard to one side from the wing damage, but it still flew. For an hour and a half he nursed it low over a moonlit landscape of forest and frozen lakes, burning down fuel and hunting for somewhere to land.<\/p><p>He was looking for a lake with a long, straight shoreline, and he wanted to touch down close to the bank, so that if the ice gave way, his passengers might still scramble clear. He rejected the first lake, crossed by a power line, and the second, blocked by an island. On the third he committed, and set the big Boeing down on the ice of Lake Korpiyarvi, less than 90 miles from the Finnish border. Even the Soviets, when they arrived, admitted it was a superb piece of flying.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Gcf4ksbuKOw\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Prisoners, Then Free<\/h2><p>Villagers and militia reached the aircraft within minutes and, to the crew's horror, lit a fire near the fuel-leaking wing. The sparks, mercifully, did no harm. The survivors were taken to the town of Kem and, by most accounts, treated with genuine kindness by ordinary Soviet citizens even as the diplomatic machinery ground into gear. Within days the passengers were flown out through Murmansk aboard a chartered Pan Am 727; when the captain announced they had crossed into Finland, the cabin erupted in cheers.<\/p><p>The pilot and navigator were held longer, interrogated for days and pressed into a scripted confession before being released. The air-defense commander who ordered the shootdown was quietly cashiered. Five years later, tragically, the lesson went unlearned: KAL 007 strayed into Soviet airspace and was shot down with no survivors at all. That Flight 902 ended with 107 people walking off a frozen lake, rather than vanishing into the sea, is down to a navigator's honesty, a village's decency, and a captain who refused to give up on his aircraft.<\/p><p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;font-style:italic\">Sources: George L. Rueckert, Aviation History (HistoryNet); Wikipedia; Simple Flying. Passenger and crew accounts as documented in Rueckert's firsthand report.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Articles similaires<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/fr\/le-vol-de-nuit-007-nest-jamais-rentre-chez-lui\/\">Le vol de nuit 007 n&#039;est jamais rentr\u00e9 \u00e0 la maison<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/fr\/bulgarie-mig-29-scramble-squawk-7500-lot-a320-2026\/\">Code 7500: Bulgaria's MiG-29 Scrambles<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/fr\/tu-134-fake-road-landing-italians-russia-1974\/\">The Tu-134 That Landed on a Highway<\/a><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a freezing April night in 1978, a South Korean airliner full of sleeping passengers wandered a thousand miles off course, over one of the most secret corners of the Soviet Union, and was hit by an air-to-air missile. What happened next is one of the most extraordinary survival stories of the Cold War: a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":12786485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12787438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>KAL 902: Shot Down, Landed on a Frozen Lake<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In 1978 a Soviet Su-15 shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 902 over Murmansk. 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