Pretty well documented.
http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id331.htm
“As it turned out, the Soviets’ insistence that KAL 007 was being used for intelligence gathering was not as far-fetched as it seemed. The Cuban airline, Cubana, routinely sent planes veering out of authorized flight paths to overfly U.S. military facilities. In Eastern Europe, Finnair flights often intruded on Soviet territory to gather intelligence. Israel’s national airline, El Al, was used for the same purpose. And the Soviet national carrier, Aeroflot, was notorious for unauthorized overflights. In November 1981, an Aeroflot airliner bound for Dulles International Airport took advantage of the air traffic controllers’ strike to overfly the Strategic Air Command center at New Hampshire’s Pease AFB as well as the General Dynamics shipyards at Groton, Connecticut. Soviet aircraft often invaded American Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ) — from January to September 1983, 77 Soviet planes entered the Atlantic Coast ADIZ. Their main purpose: to pick up U.S. radar frequencies and record how long it took American interceptors to respond. U.S. reconnaissance planes sometimes violated Soviet airspace, as well. But the U.S. vigorously denied that KAL 007 had been used for intelligence-gathering.”
Only took about two minutes to find that and considering it happened back in the 80s that’s saying something. Most of the times I’ve heard about it have been in various books and I vaguely remember it happening at the time but didn’t recall the Pease AFB flyover.
Thank you!
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