On September 1, 1983, while en-route from New York City to Seoul, South Korea with stopover in Anchorage, Alaska, Korean Airlines Flight 007, a Boeing 747-230B carrying 246 passengers and 23 crew was shot down over Moneron Island by the Soviet Air Force, after the airliner deviated from its original planned route and flew through Soviet prohibited airspace, killing all onboard. Ogarkov appeared on television and in the news conference on the incident where he defended shooting down of the airliner and said the decision to shoot down the plane was "not an accident or an error" and had been made by a local commander, after it was assumed that the airliner was a reconnaissance aircraft on a spying mission.