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Originally posted by BansheeOne:

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Originally posted by Dallas239:
The SR-71 was not invisible. And at 25,000 on one engine would have been easy prey. The Soviets would undoubtedly have forced or shot it down. At a minimum, the Swedes deterred the Soviets from engaging what would have otherwise been an unarmed prize. In doing so, they were potentially putting themselves between our Blackbird and a missile. The Eagle pilots were "just doing their jobs,"* the Swedes went above and beyond for a foreign crew.

[*Which often involves heroism as well.]

Looking at a map, I realize that depending upon the definite flight path they might actually have flown quite a while in international airspace. I was initially under the impression they just handed them from Swedish to Danish airspace, which would be quite possible over the Baltic Approaches. However, according to an excerpt from Osprey's "LOCKHEED SR-71 OPERATIONS IN EUROPE AND THE MIDDLE EAST" by Paul F. Crickmore somebody posted on another board, the SR-71 was not at latitude to chose the safest track, and the situation was in fact well beyond "regular".

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DET 4's NEAR LOSS Some 18 months earlier, on 29 June 1987, Det 4 had almost suffered an aerial disaster of its own. Majs Duane Noll and RSO Tom Veltri, in 6417964, were conducting a seemingly routine Barents/Baltic Seas mission when there was an explosion in the aircraft's right engine. Having just completed their anti-clockwise run off the coasts of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and with 'denied territory' off to their right, the crew had no alternative but to turn left, decelerate and descend. North of Gotland, and with the aircraft descending, Veltri turned on the IFF and declared an emergency on Guard frequency, as he recalls; 'That got the Swedish air force's attention, and a pair of Viggens were on our wing before we reached 18,000 ft. Given that the Soviets were monitoring our activity, I was glad to see a friendly escort. We later found out that the Soviets had launched numerous fighters with orders to force us to land in Soviet territory or shoot us down. The descent from 80,000 ft to 25,000 ft, where the aeroplane began to stabilise, took just a few minutes. The Viggens continued to escort us through the Baltic and along the Polish and East German borders until USAFE F-15s from West Germany intercepted and took over escort duties, but the worst was not yet over. Since fuel constraints made it impossible for us to make it back to Mildenhall, we were forced to land at Nordholz Air Base, in West Germany. The engine explosion also caused the complete loss of our auxiliary hydraulic fluids, which meant no brakes or steering on landing. The base closed off all surrounding roads prior to our arrival in anticipation of our going off the runway. Fortunately for everyone, there was just enough residual hydraulic fluid left in the lines for one application of the brakes.'

Sure, this was 1987, with the Cold War thawing rapidly, and it seems unlikely the Soviets would have shot them down. Then again, just the month before Mathias Rust had landed a Cessna in Red Square, and PVO Strany might have felt they needed to prove something.

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Originally posted by Hound Dog:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The Sovs did not KNOW that KAL007 was a civilian liner. They thought it was an American recon bird that overflew their most sensitive base.

What about precedent - was there any case documented where the Sovs knowingly shot down a US aircraft when that aircraft did not first violate Soviet airspace?

I'm not saying they would not have done so. I'm just not convinced they would have risked so much over so little potential gain.

Of course, there still would have been significant pucker factor for the Blackbird crew until the Swedes showed up.

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Originally posted by Hound Dog:
The Sovs did not KNOW that KAL007 was a civilian liner. They thought it was an American recon bird that overflew their most sensitive base.

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Originally posted by SgtGold:
The @#$%&?! Russians KNEW what they were doing. They had done it before, and had standing orders to do it again . #$%! them and their failed empire!

https://www.google.com/url?sa=...ZeOkXXFd32rtXZP3x00b

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December 2, 2018

RC-135 pilot interview: Cold War Spyflights

The RC-135 has been quietly snooping and changing history for almost 60 years. Robert Hopkins flew the RC’ in the heat of the Cold War, braving intercepting MiG-31s and other threats to eavesdrop on the US’ potential enemies and hoover up vital intelligence for Presidents and generals. We met him to find out more.

[...]

What were US recce aircraft doing in the Cold War?

“As I noted in an earlier answer, they had two primary roles: early long-term warning of an impending attack by the USSR and its allies and to acquire intelligence needed to fulfill the deterrent strike mission. Most of this was undertaken by SAC to meet its intelligence requirements, but the US Navy flew a fair number as well, as did USAFE and PACAF in “electric” C-130s. Other nations did too, with both Britain and Sweden building modest but successful programs early on, followed by other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries. We shouldn’t forget the CIA missions, including the 24 total U-2 overflights of the USSR (small by comparison to the 156 RB-47 overflights in 1956 alone).”

Was it dangerous? What mistakes were made?

“These were very dangerous missions, not only because the USSR, PRC, and North Korea were willing and able to attack them and shoot them down, but because the airplanes were not always reliable or were too old. Sending RB-29s or RB-50s on missions where they were subject to attack by MiG-15s or MiG-17s was a horrible mismatch. Airplanes also struggled with breaking or other maintenance issues.

No doubt there were ill-considered decisions to undertake specific missions, and the subject of overflights remains highly contentious. In general, however, decision makers in the West acted out of genuine desperation to acquire intelligence they considered critical to the survival of the West in the face of what they saw as an existential communist threat to the liberal capitalist world order.”

[...]

What was the legal status of reconnaissance flights?

“Peripheral reconnaissance flights were and are legal under a variety of international agreements (Paris, 1919, Chicago, 1944). Even the USSR accepted that peripheral recon missions were legal, although they justified attacking them on the grounds that they had (or could) violate sovereign airspace, which was just an excuse for their unwarranted actions.

Overflights were a different matter. By themselves they were not a casus belli, a reason to declare war. Neither Eisenhower nor Khrushchev was willing to launch Armageddon over a U-2 overflight. When they met at Camp David in September 1959, the U-2 overflights did not come up. Ike didn’t want to rub them in and Nikita didn’t want to admit vulnerability. Both accepted them as part of espionage in general. As aerial reconnaissance maven Dick Leghorn opined, the world should understand that an overflight is no different than a spy mission, and once the world accepted this there would be a significant reduction in tensions associated with these missions."

[...]

Were any spy flights shot down? What happened?

“The first US reconnaissance flight to be shot down (others had been attacked) was a US Navy PB4Y Privateer over the Baltic in April 1950, and the last was a US Navy EC-121 off North Korea in 1969. There are many fine histories of all of these losses, including my own Spyflights and Overflights, as well as By Any Means Necessary, The Price of Vigilance, and The Little Toy Dog.”

[...]

What is a popular myth about aerial reconnaissance?

“The single most popular myth is that these flights threatened the Soviet Union and were, in the words of US diplomat George Kennan, “indistinguishable from a state of war.”

We now know (to quote a book title) that the flights were far less provocative to Soviet leaders. Declassified documents from the Soviet era, interviews, and brilliant scholarship (such as William Taubman’s biography of Khrushchev) show that the flights had little impact beyond irritants and “theater” at the UN or in the pages of the New York Times. By the time of Stalin’s death in 1953, attacks on Western reconnaissance aircraft began to dwindle as Soviet defense capabilities improved sufficiently to identify and track peripheral missions without the need to attack them. The evidence is compelling, and by 1960 these flights had become so routine that the Soviets could actually predict the exact arrival of WC-135s on daily aerial sampling missions, for example, and these were never considered a threat (the 1960 RB-47H loss was purely political, a decision made by Khrushchev).”

[...]