Finnair Flight 915

Finnair Flight 915 (AY915) was a scheduled flight by Finnair from Tokyo, Japan, over the North Pole to Helsinki, Finland, on 23 December 1987. In 2014, Finnish media reported a claim by two of the flight's pilots that the Soviet Union had fired a missile at the aircraft, which exploded less than 30 seconds before impact. The allegations came out only in September 2014, when Helsingin Sanomat, the leading Finnish daily newspaper, published an extensive article on the matter. The Finnish Broadcasting Corporation YLE reported on the article on the Internet the same day.

When the matter came out, it caused outrage in Finland among those politicians and civil servants to whom it should have been reported at the time, and it was widely publicised and commented upon in the Finnish media, amidst allegations of Finlandization.

The alleged incident has been compared to other similar incidents involving the Soviet Union, such as the Aero Kaleva in 1940, Aeroflot Flight 902 in 1962, Korean Air Lines Flight 902 in 1978, and Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in 1983. Co-captain Kaukiainen said that the Finnair pilots decided to speak out on the matter after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 had been shot down in Ukraine on 17 July 2014.

Background

Finnair was the first airline in the world to fly non-stop scheduled flights between Europe and Japan starting in 1983. The aircraft they used was McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30ERs, which had extra fuel tanks fitted in the cargo space that enabled the plane to take on 24,000 L of additional fuel. This made it possible to cover the 5413 nmi from Tokyo to Helsinki on a non-stop flight that lasted 13 hours. The flight was carried out in international air space, over the North Pole, since the Soviet Union had demanded extra payments for flights over its territory in Siberia, in addition to ordinary navigation fees. The range of the aircraft of other western airlines did not allow for such flights, and they landed in Anchorage, Alaska, for refuelling. Japanese airlines did not fly non-stop over Siberia, as they thought that the Soviet Union would have demanded bilateral flight rights in return.

Flight

The aircraft involved was a DC-10-30/ER leased to Finnair and flying in Finnair livery. It was originally registered in Finland with the registration OH-LHC, but it was mostly known for its re-registration in the United States as N345HC. It was built and delivered to Finnair in 1981. The same aircraft was later painted with Moomin characters. It was used by Finnair between 1981 and 1995, although on two occasions in the 1990s it was leased to Garuda Indonesia.

The Finnair aircraft had taken off from Tokyo's Narita International Airport almost on schedule, around 10 a.m. Japanese time (3 a.m. Finnish time) on 23 December 1987, and it carried 201 passengers, four pilots, and 12 Finnish and 2 Japanese flight attendants. The cruising altitude was 10,600 m.

The flight proceeded north from Tokyo to Bering Strait and on over the North Pole and then with the aid of an inertial navigation system south toward Svalbard and on toward Helsinki. Before the Bering Strait, the plane crossed the International Date Line over the Aleutian Islands and thus for some time flew during the previous day, 22 December.

Events

According to the pilots' 2014 report of the incident, when the aircraft was over the Edgeøya island of Svalbard, between 1 and 2 p.m. Finnish time, the assistant pilot in command Esko Kaukiainen and assistant first officer Markku Soininen saw a rocket approaching the aircraft ahead, at 30 degrees to the left of the flight path of the plane. The pilot in command and the first officer were having a rest at the time. Visibility was good, and the pilots followed the flight of the rocket for more than half a minute. At first, they thought it was a Soviet weather rocket on its way to the troposphere, but when it reached the cruising altitude of the aircraft, it turned and came straight at it. Then the rocket exploded. It was clear to the pilots that the rocket had been locked to its target, the Finnair aircraft.

The inertial navigation system equipment of the aircraft allowed the crew to determine their position. After the explosion, Kaukiainen started a stopwatch. 60 to 80 seconds later the aircraft came to the dust cloud left by the explosion. With the cruising speed of the aircraft being 900 km/h and that of the missile at least 1800 km/h, the pilots calculated that the explosion had taken place only about 20 seconds before impact. The pilots watched as the hull of the missile fell down towards the sea in a spirallike motion.

The pilot in command came to the cockpit later and took care of the landing at about 4 p.m. Finnish time. The pilots who had been in the cockpit during the events reported orally to him.