BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: In our "CNN 20" segment, a look back at the Soviet downing of a Korean Airlines flight back in 1983.</s>RALPH BEGLEITER, FORMER CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was September 1, 1983 and a Korean airliner, carrying civilians, strayed into Soviet air space over something called the Kamchatka Peninsula. A Soviet military radar station observes the intrusion into the motherland's territory, and essentially radios home for instructions: what do we do? And the instructions were: shoot it down. And the Soviet pilot flies up, and he wobbles his wings, which is an international signal for, you know: I got something to tell you, tune into your radio. The Korean pilot apparently did not answer those transmissions from the Soviets, and in the depths of the Cold War, a Soviet pilot flying a fighter plane decided to bring down what he thought, at that moment, and his superiors had told him, was an enemy aircraft. All of the people aboard that plane died on the plane, fell into the Pacific Ocean. The Soviet foreign minister, Andrei Gromyko, had given absolutely no apology. Gromyko had insisted the Soviet Union did the right thing, and made no apologies for it. Eventually, the Soviets and the United States engaged in investigations that revealed that the plane was a civilian plane. And the Soviets eventually -- took a while -- but eventually apologized for shooting it down. And that was the beginning of the end of the Cold War.
CNN 20: Soviets Down Korean Airliner, September 1, 1983