Qualla: Korean Air Flight 858 https://qualla.com/korean-air-flight-858 en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:36 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/4/t/6/korean-air-flight-858-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Korean Air Flight 858 https://qualla.com/korean-air-flight-858 Korean Air Flight 858: Introduction https://qualla.com/korean-air-flight-858/ Photo credit Johannes Barre, iGEL (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The bomb was hidden inside a Panasonic transistor radio, tucked into the overhead bin of a Boeing 707 by a young woman who had been trained since adolescence to serve the North Korean state. On 29 November 1987, Korean Air Flight 858 was en route from Baghdad to Seoul with stopovers in Abu Dhabi and Bangkok when the device detonated over the Andaman Sea. All 104 passengers and 11 crew members died -- almost all of them South Korean citizens heading home. The motive, investigators later determined, was to frighten foreign teams away from the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, an event that would showcase South Korea's prosperity to the world and humiliate the North.

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Image: Johannes Barre, iGEL (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/4/t/6/korean-air-flight-858-wp/w4t6-korean-air-flight-858-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Korean Air Flight 858: A Journey Through Cold War Geography https://qualla.com/korean-air-flight-858/ Photo credit Johannes Barre, iGEL (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The route of Flight 858 traced the geopolitics of the late Cold War across three continents. The aircraft, a 16-year-old Boeing 707-3B5C with 36,000 flying hours, departed Saddam International Airport in Baghdad -- a city then deep in the Iran-Iraq War. Its first stop was Abu Dha...

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Image: Johannes Barre, iGEL (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/4/t/6/korean-air-flight-858-wp/w4t6-korean-air-flight-858-a-journey-through-cold-war-geography.mp3 0:06 2 full Korean Air Flight 858: The Agents Who Failed to Disappear https://qualla.com/korean-air-flight-858/ Photo credit Johannes Barre, iGEL (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Kim Sung-il and Kim Hyon-hui had traveled from Pyongyang to Moscow on 12 November, then made their way through Europe. In Yugoslavia, handlers arriving by train from Vienna gave them the device -- a radio packed with plastic explosives and a bottle of liquid accelerant disguised ...

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Image: Johannes Barre, iGEL (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/4/t/6/korean-air-flight-858-wp/w4t6-korean-air-flight-858-the-agents-who-failed-to-disappear.mp3 0:06 3 full Korean Air Flight 858: A Prisoner of Guilt https://qualla.com/korean-air-flight-858/ Photo credit Johannes Barre, iGEL (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Kim Hyon-hui was sentenced to death in South Korea, but President Roh Tae-woo pardoned her on the grounds that she had been brainwashed by the North Korean regime from childhood. Her subsequent testimony became a cornerstone of the case linking Pyongyang to state-sponsored terror...

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/4/t/6/korean-air-flight-858-wp/w4t6-korean-air-flight-858-a-prisoner-of-guilt.mp3 0:06 4 full Korean Air Flight 858: Shadows Over the Olympics https://qualla.com/korean-air-flight-858/ Photo credit Johannes Barre, iGEL (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The bombing failed in its strategic objective. The 1988 Seoul Olympics went ahead as planned, with 159 nations participating -- the largest gathering at a Summer Games up to that point. South Korea used the event to demonstrate its transformation from a war-ravaged nation into a ...

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/4/t/6/korean-air-flight-858-wp/w4t6-korean-air-flight-858-shadows-over-the-olympics.mp3 0:06 5 full Korean Air Flight 858: The Andaman Sea Below https://qualla.com/korean-air-flight-858/ Photo credit Johannes Barre, iGEL (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The waters where Flight 858 fell lie west of Myanmar and east of India's Andaman Islands, a stretch of deep tropical sea that offers no marker for what happened above it. The wreckage was never fully recovered. From the air, the Andaman Sea is a deceptively calm expanse of blue-g...

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/4/t/6/korean-air-flight-858-wp/w4t6-korean-air-flight-858-the-andaman-sea-below.mp3 0:06 6 full