Hacker News Reader

Kill everyone is certainly not the only option nor the most likely reason for scrambling. Any commander will value eyes on the ground as high quality intelligence, and in this situation a calm professional pilot obsrving the cockpit will be useful, even if the airforce don't have gizmos for listening in, videoing etc

so, no, reaching for a gun might mean you just want to look down the sight to see more.

View on HN

I agree. They could have forced it to land as well, simply by getting rid of an engine or two.

Korean airliner over Soviet Union in 1978:

>He fired a pair of R-60 missiles, one of which caused heavy damage to part of the left wing of the Boeing 707 and punctured the fuselage, causing rapid decompression, and killing two of the 97 passengers. After being hit, the airliner descended into cloud and was lost by the Su-15s. At 23:05, 40 minutes after the missile strike, it was finally forced to land by another Su-15TM on the frozen Korpijärvi Lake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_902

Reply on news.ycombinator.com