The Korean aircraft was correctly communicating with other KAL crews , forty-six minutes after the official time of the shootdown . A large air battle allegedly occurred between the Soviet Air Force and the USAF , during which the Soviets shot down several American aircraft , including an RC-135 , an EF-111 and probably even an SR-71 . The SU-15 pilot , Major Osipovich , flew two sorties and shot down two targets ( contradicted by the 1991 interview with Osipovich ) . Furthermore , for a long time all the experts believed that the Soviet fighter pilot was called Major Kazmin . Michel Brun believes that Kazmin and Osipovich twice destroyed an aircraft , but absolutely not the KAL 007 . According to the theory , the whereabouts of the KAL-007 wreckage is not known to anyone , but is probably away from Moneron Island down the coast of Japan . The theory postulates further that the real cause of the destruction is not known , but could have been a surface-to-air missile fired from ( similar case with shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 ) or from Japanese forces , who could not identify the airliner which was keeping radio silence
Iran Air Flight 655
Iran Air Flight 655
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 alternative theories