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The Air Crash KAL 858, 1987: When Olympics Go Political
115 were killed to scare off countries from coming to Seoul Olympics
On November 29, 1987, the Korean Airline aircraft KAL 858 exploded while flying over the Andaman Sea. All 115 people on board were killed.
Two days later, two names arose the investigators’ interest. Shinichi Hachiya and Mayumi Hachiya held Japanese passports, which claimed they were father and daughter. They got on board KAL 858 on the day of the crash and got off at the first stop in Abu Dhabi. Soon the Japanese Embassy in Abu Dhabi found out the two passports were fake. When the officers managed to trace the two suspects, they were at Bahrain International Airport. They almost got on board an airplane heading to Rome, Italy.
They were stopped at the boarding gate.
A few hours into the questioning, the two suspects attempted suicide by biting poisonous capsules hidden in their cigarettes. They were sent to the hospital where the man died. It turned out, the woman made a fake swallow and spat out the capsule afterward. She was soon taken out for interrogation by the officers from Japan and Bahrain.
In the following weeks, the South Korean government pressed hard to get the female suspect and other evidence extradited to Korea. They…
