WI: Korean Air flight 85 shot down on 9/11

This was a scenario I posed in an old infobox, but I was wondering what you thought of it. Korean Air Flight 85 was a plane that was thought to be hijacked on 9/11 (it wasn't). Canadian PM Jean Chrétien authorized for it to be shot down if it did not communicate. So what if the plane failed to communicate, and the Canadians got trigger-happy and shot it down, killing 215 people? How would this impact Canadian relations with the US and South Korea, and how would it impact Canadian poltitics?
 

Geon

Donor
Given all the confusion on 9/11 initially I suspect you'd have mixed reactions. Some in both the U.S. and South Korea would accuse the Canadians of being too trigger happy. But similar orders were issued to the air force in the U.S. Given the situation I suspect that relations with the U.S. and South Korea might be strained ever so briefly but under the circumstances you mention I don't really see that Canada could be blamed much given this scenario.
 
Wait would there be any survivors since the B747-400 is a big bulky plane and the plane is not full of fuel it can be plausible for the plane to survive a missile hit and continue flying depending on damage.
 
Wait would there be any survivors since the B747-400 is a big bulky plane and the plane is not full of fuel it can be plausible for the plane to survive a missile hit and continue flying depending on damage.
_82293916_mh17firemen.jpg

The passengers and crew of MH17 would dispute that.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Wait would there be any survivors since the B747-400 is a big bulky plane and the plane is not full of fuel it can be plausible for the plane to survive a missile hit and continue flying depending on damage.
Not really. It's a commercial aircraft, not a warplane. The fight control computers aren't programmed to account for battle damage. Not to mention eating a missile when you're not expecting it is probably about the hardest thing in the world to recover from.
 
I don't believe Canada has Buk missiles
That's like saying being shot by a Glock will kill you while being shot by a Beretta won't.
[/QUOTE]and the F-15 missiles are hitting the back of the plane not the front like with MH17.[/QUOTE]
It doesn't matter where it hits, if the plane's pressurized hull is breached, then the results are usually catastrophic.
 
Not really. It's a commercial aircraft, not a warplane. The fight control computers aren't programmed to account for battle damage. Not to mention eating a missile when you're not expecting it is probably about the hardest thing in the world to recover from.
Korean Air Lines flight 007 the crew were able to retain limited control of their B747-200 for 5 minutes before losing all control after being hit by the Soviet missile so it is plausible and same can be said to pressurized hull looking at japan air flight 123 it was able to fly after the rapid decompression even if there was only 4 survivors after the Jumbo crashed.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Korean Air Lines flight 007 the crew were able to retain limited control of their B747-200 for 5 minutes before losing all control after being hit by the Soviet missile so it is plausible and same can be said to pressurized hull looking at japan air flight 123 it was able to fly after the rapid decompression even if there was only 4 survivors after the Jumbo crashed.
Korean Air 007 still crashed with no survivors. That proves my point, not yours. And hitting from the back or front doesn't really matter. If SARH missiles are launched, they're either going to blow off the tail, tear into a wing, or detonate on the belly, where a half empty fuel tank is (meaning it's a big ass fuel/air explosive bomb). If IR missiles are launched, their going for the engines and will probably cause so much damage the 747 is likely to lose the wing.
 
If the two intercepting USAF F-15 had decided to fire a missile it would probably be an AIM-9, which is much smaller than the K-8 fired at KAL 007. A closer comparison would be Korean Air Lines Flight 902, which took an R-60 to the wing, and managed to make an emergency landing on a frozen lake. However, the R-60 has a small 3kg warhead, which is a third the size of the warhead on an AIM-9. If it went after one of the engines, it could plausibly bring down the aircraft, though we can't tell for certain.

If they fired an AIM-7 or AIM-120, I think it would be safe to say the aircraft wouldn't survive.
 
Well this video will give people insight on this incident with flight 85 if they never heard it before.
Also what's with Korean Airlines getting it's planes shot down.
 
^^ And it would be REALLY interesting, albeit in a non-consequential sort of way, for the downing of an airplane to be Jean Chretien's debut as a world leader in the international spotlight. (Yes, that's a 62-year-old man throttling a non-violent protester in his twenties.)

As you can see from that photo, Chretien's appearance(through no fault of his own, admittedly) bore some resemblance to the stereotypical image of a big-city gangster("the man who drove the getaway car" as one wag put it), and his use of the English language, while not as bad as sometimes claimed, nevertheless was heavily accented in a way that ended up making him sound a little on the low-brow side. Suffice to say, he was Central Casting for "Guy who shoots down an airplane just for shit and giggles".
 
Well this video will give people insight on this incident with flight 85 if they never heard it before.
Also what's with Korean Airlines getting it's planes shot down.

Well, the OO7 was shot down by the Soviets, but 858 was blown up with a bomb in '87, likely by North Korean-aliies seeking to wreck the upcoming Olympics. Since then, I think most of their problems have been own-goals.
 
Contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, engines are not the only thing that can malfunction on an aircraft.
While a tail hit like that of KAL 007 that destroyed all tail control would surely doom the aircraft, a heat-seeking missile like an AIM-9 would most likely go for the engines. The R-60 that hit KAL 902 struck the aircraft near Engine #1, and blew 4 meters off of the wing. As a 747 is a much larger aircraft than a 707, one R-60 missile would not seriously threaten it, but an AIM-9 could. We just can't tell for certain. The KAL 902 hit didn't seem to damage the control surfaces or hydraulics. This is because the 707 did not use hydraulics on the control surfaces (for the most part). The 747, with its four redundant hydraulic systems could plausibly take more damage. Only a catastrophic failure of two or more systems could take a major control surface off line.

This is of course assuming that if fired, an AIM-9 would strike an outboard engine. If it struck an inboard engine, damage to the fuselage would be severe. Going back once again to KAL 902, shrapnel from the R-60 killed one passenger and wounded several others. Presumably, with the distance from the outboard engine to the fuselage of a 747 being much greater the damage would be about the same. However, an inboard engine hit would undoubtedly kill many of the passengers. Even if it did not doom the aircraft, upon landing we could expect to see news footage of people staggering off the aircraft bleeding, others having to be carried off. It would probably be shown alongside news reels of the WTC, Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 in the years to come.

Going back to the original question, I think that it could be possibly spun as "This happened because of Al-Qaeda. Without them, the fatal series of miscommunications would not have happened. The pilots of KAL 085 are not to blame. The pilots of the F-15's are not to blame. If there is anybody to blame, it is Al-Qaeda."
 
Top