> In 1983, a Soviet fighter plane shot down a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 that had strayed into Soviet airspace during a tense period of the Cold War, killing all 269 onboard.
Not the only Soviet shootdown of a KAL flight, either:
> Korean Air Lines Flight 902 (KAL 902) was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from Paris to Seoul via Anchorage. On 20 April 1978, the Soviet air defense shot down the aircraft serving the flight, a Boeing 707, near Murmansk, Soviet Union, after the aircraft violated Soviet airspace.
Happily, less deadly:
> The incident killed two of the 109 passengers and crew members aboard and forced the plane to make an emergency landing on the frozen Korpijärvi Lake.
The first one was a tragic accident, but it is hard to blame it on the Russian defense.
The airplane entered heavy militarized Soviet airspace at a time of intense exercises that was known to be off limits by KAL, the soviets tried to contact and warn the airplane multiple times and intercepted it twice till the airplane was shoot down.
This also came in the context of US spy airplanes flying in the area having already poked and embarrassed Soviet air defense in the same weeks.
Not the only Soviet shootdown of a KAL flight, either:
> Korean Air Lines Flight 902 (KAL 902) was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from Paris to Seoul via Anchorage. On 20 April 1978, the Soviet air defense shot down the aircraft serving the flight, a Boeing 707, near Murmansk, Soviet Union, after the aircraft violated Soviet airspace.
Happily, less deadly:
> The incident killed two of the 109 passengers and crew members aboard and forced the plane to make an emergency landing on the frozen Korpijärvi Lake.