THIS MONTH IN KOREAN HISTORY - Nov 2025 — Korean Culture Center NYC

Tragedy and Mysteries of Korean Air Flight 858

By Sharon Stern

On November 29, 1987, Korean Air Flight 858 exploded in mid-air over the Andaman Sea, off the coastline of Myanmar, killing 115 people. It was quickly identified as an attack carried out by North Korean spies. Is that all there is to the story? At the core of this story is the fact that 115 people lost their lives and no one can summarize that as anything other than a horrific tragedy that should not have occurred. But the details leave us with questions and mysteries and if it weren’t for the loss of life, we would have the plot of a really good drama. But we can’t and shouldn’t and mustn’t turn away from that needless and unresolved loss of precious lives.

This tragedy happened at a critical juncture in Korean history, which is precisely why the shrouds of mystery hang heavily around the surrounding events. Even though it was a single incident, there is context to why this time was chosen for the attack. We will examine the events leading up to the event, the event itself and what followed.

Quick Review of the Years From 1905 to the Early 1980s

In past newsletters, we have covered a number of critical moments in Korean history, but an express train review of a few major events in the 20th Century will help set the stage for the lead up to the bombing of this flight.

Korea lived through 40 years of occupation by the Japanese Empire from, arguably, 1905, but officially from 1910 through 1945. These were impossibly difficult years for Korea and the population was abused and dispersed across the countries under Japan’s control.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Chiang Kai-shek, and Winston Churchill at the Cairo Conference, 1943.

At the end of WWII, Korea was promised independence. However, a couple of years before the end of the war, the US, Great Britain, China and the USSR were discussing what would become of Korea. They decided (without Korea) in two summits (Cairo – 1943 and Yalta – 1945) that Korea could gain independence but would need international trusteeship in the interim – something that most Koreans, after already having been occupied for decades, were vehemently opposed to. These four countries were also the founding powers that formed the United Nations during the same time period.

At the end of the war, the USSR had invaded Manchuria and US President Harry Truman proposed to Joseph Stalin a division of trusteeship in Korea between the USSR and the US. Korea moved from occupation by Japan to occupation by the USSR and the US. The division of the two halves of the peninsula specifically at the 38th parallel was a quick and almost arbitrary decision by a couple of military commanders, trying to do pre-planning before the end of the war. The occupation of Korea, which was supposed to be temporary, became entrenched as the relationship between the USSR and the US soured and became increasingly adversarial.

In 1947, the United Nations ordered elections to be held in Korea, but the USSR didn’t agree with the UN resolution and wouldn’t allow the UN to enter the North. By 1948, two separate governments were formally established, both wanting reunification under their own rule. China and the USSR were supporting the North. The US and the UN were supporting the South.

In June of 1950, the Korea People’s Army (KPA) of the North invaded the South. This was the event that began the Korean War, though tensions had already been high for a while. The war dragged on with high casualties of approximately three million people and nearly saw the use of nuclear weapons. When Joseph Stalin died in 1953, new leadership in the Soviet Union did not have the same energy to continue the conflict. The UN signed an armistice in July of 1953, but the South Korean President Syngman Rhee refused to sign. The fighting stopped, but there was no peace treaty. The UN sent troops to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to monitor the truce.

After the Korean War, South Korea was ruled by a series of dictators, supported by the US in order to try to maintain a strong front against the Communist-backed North. Martial law was used repeatedly to control civil protest and therefore society at large, often at the cost of many civilian lives.

Lee Byung Cheol (left), the founder of Samsung, Jung Joo Young (middle), the fonder of Hyundai, and Koo In-hwoi (right) founder of LG.

The system of family-owned conglomerates or chaebol were created to produce rapid economic development, each assigned different industries to concentrate on. The US took advantage of this situation by using chaebol to produce military equipment for the US and as the Vietnam War began, their needs for weapon production grew. This was enormously helpful to the economy of South Korea.

By the late 1970’s, the Third Republic of Korea led by President Park Chung Hee was becoming more and more repressive and authoritarian. Park was president from 1963-1979 and although a great deal of infrastructure and modernization was established under his rule, including the beginning of what is referred to as the Miracle on the Han River, his brutal repression and human rights abuses overwhelmed the populace. He oversaw the structure and systemization of the infrastructure of the beginning international adoptions that brought a number of readers to the US. He was assassinated in October of 1979 by someone as evil as he was.

In December of 1979, a coup d’etat issued in another dictator, Chun Doo-hwan, who also implemented martial law to maintain strict control. The following May, the Gwangju Uprising, saw at least 2,000 people die and at least another 3,500 wounded as people pushed back against repression. This was really the start of permanent change to come in South Korea. In 1981, the constitution was changed to restrict a president to a single term. Chun Doo-hwan did not want to honor that restriction, though. He wanted to try to stay in power. He ultimately handpicked his successor to be Roh Tae-woo.

Press Conference Held on October 1981 after the announcement of the Olympic host City for 1988 Seoul Olympic games.

And this is where our story really begins. Chun tried to do certain things to at least act like he was appeasing the citizens and one of those things was to bid to host the 1988 Summer Olympic Games. He thought that preparation for the Games could help distract from political turmoil. The Games could also serve to enhance the opinions of the rest of the world toward South Korea. He wanted to show that an authoritarian regime could exist on a world stage and that democracy was not a necessity. He was hoping for a boon in tourist money. The selection of South Korea to host the Olympics was controversial, in several ways. The successful bid by South Korea to host the Olympic Games is definitely a factor, if not the defining motivation, leading up to the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858.

Controversy About the Olympics

In 1981, world opinion of South Korea was not entirely positive. The Chun coup was in the world news. The Gwangju Uprising and Massacre was in the world news. South Korea was not yet a member of the United Nations. It was still technically at war with the North. The only other country that had bid for the 1988 Summer Olympics was Japan. But the choice of South Korea seemed odd to many.

The 1984 Summer Olympics took place in Los Angeles in the US. They were boycotted by the Soviet Union and a number of other countries because of the boycott of Western countries of the 1980 Moscow Games. This history of boycotts left the Olympics at a low point in its history and created a risk for South Korea. If the Soviet Union and other communist countries boycotted the Seoul Olympics, the benefits for hosting the Olympics would be greatly diminished. However (and luckily for South Korea), communist countries did not immediately boycott the games.

Olympic flames of 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.

Instead, with the help and backing of Fidel Castro of Cuba, North Korea proposed a shared Olympics that would take place both in North and South Korea. Castro was already feeling snubbed by having Cuba rejected to host the 1987 Pan American Games and was willing to try to help convince the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to split the Games between North and South Korea. At first the IOC rejected the idea, stating that the games could not be split between two countries. North Korea argued that the show of unity would be good for both countries and, indeed, the world. This intervention by North Korea put South Korea in a difficult position on the world stage. If they refused to negotiate, what did that say about their wish for reunification? The head of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch, was very skeptical that North Korea would completely open its borders to tourists from across the globe, but began the negotiations earnestly.

There were many sincere meetings and visits by the IOC, many letters from the IOC, Cuba, North Korea, South Korea, the Soviet Union, trying to negotiate terms of some type of shared Games. Tensions ran very high and at one point, the North threatened violence or action against South Korea to the IOC and South Korea told the IOC to not be worried about threats by the North because South Korea had the US backing them up. The North hoped that both the Soviet Union and China would threaten a boycott if the North was not allowed to share the games.

At a negotiating meeting in Lausanne in 1986, talks came to a stalemate when North Korea stated they needed more time to consider what was being offered – how many sports they would host and how. By not accepting what was being offered, the representatives from North Korea missed a true opportunity to be included in the Games. This meeting was very late in the planning stages for the Games and this issue needed to be decided on definitively. They left and tried to get the Soviet Union and China to put pressure on the IOC for them. To their disappointment, the Soviet Union, China, East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia all decided to participate in the Games in South Korea.

Without support by the large communist countries for a boycott, North Korea turned its attention to the idea of disrupting the Games. They were well aware of the civil unrest in South Korea. The head of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch, was truly concerned about a horrific scenario of some sort happening before or during the Games. He continued to send letters to the North urging at least a joint presence of the two Koreas at the Games and that they enter together during the Opening Ceremony. The attitude coming from the South was not helpful. The government thought they could humiliate the North by having a truly successful Games. The North believed they could provoke civil unrest in the South at a level that would either cancel the Games or bring a larger boycott.

In June of 1987, a year before the Games, nationwide pro-democracy protests in South Korea. President Chun and his handpicked successor, Roh Tae-woo, were not willing to use violence against the protestors because of the upcoming Olympics. On June 29, Roh Tae-woo gave a public speech called the June 29th Declaration in which he promised to amend the constitution, revise presidential elections, give amnesty to political prisoners, protect human rights, allow freedom of the press, strengthen local and educational autonomy, move toward political compromise and achieve social reform. Direct presidential elections were held in December. This was the beginning of true democracy in South Korea. And just in time for the Games! No coincidence there.

Korean Air Flight 858

Korean Air Flight 858 was an international flight from Baghdad, Iraq to Seoul, South Korea. The details of both the flight and two of its passengers are a bit complicated. The flight left Baghdad at 11:30 pm and the flight path was to take it through Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and Bangkok, Thailand before arriving at Gimpo International Airport in Seoul. On the second leg of the flight, from Abu Dhabi to Thailand, there were 104 passengers and 11 crew members. At about 2:05 pm, when the flight was over the Andaman Sea, off the coast of Myanmar, a bomb exploded and all 115 people on board were killed.

113 of the people on board were South Korean citizens, one was Indian and the other Lebanese. Most of the South Koreans were young workers who had been in the UAE and other Middle Eastern countries doing construction work. We know that the conditions of this kind of work for internationally recruited laborers was difficult and often abusive. The workers were on their way home. There was a South Korean diplomat stationed in Baghdad and his wife who were also on the flight.

Kim Hyon-hui

Two days after the bombing, two North Korean spies were arrested in Bahrain. One was Kim Seung-il and the other was Kim Hyon-hui. They had been posing as father and daughter and as Japanese tourists. When they were detained and being questioned, both of them tried to bite down on cyanide pills hidden in cigarettes. Kim Sung-il was successful and died from the poisoning. Kim Hyon-hui had the cigarette snatched out of her mouth by a police officer before she could fully consume the poison. She was rushed to a hospital and survived. After she was transferred back to Seoul and interrogated, her complicated truth came to light.

Kim Hyon-hui was the daughter of a North Korean diplomat and was a very bright and a good student. She wanted to be an actress and starred in North Korea’s first film in Technicolor, but her father did not want her to pursue acting. She was recruited at college, while studying Japanese, to the intelligence agency to train to be a spy. She was sent to Macau to learn Chinese and underwent rigorous training in self-defense and methods of killing. They were also trained in modern amenities that didn’t exist in North Korea, such as using credit cards, visiting supermarkets and discos. Her “final exam” was to infiltrate a mock embassy set up in North Korea and memorize a document there.

Kim Hyon-hui was sent through Europe for field training with an older agent, Kim Seung-il. They posed as Japanese tourists and visited a number of European cities including Vienna, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Zurich, Geneva and Paris. When they separated from this trip, the older Kim was sent on another mission to Seoul where he was discovered by South Korean agents and police and barely managed to escape.

In 1987, both Kim Seung-il and Kim Hyon-hui were given the assignment to plant a bomb on Korean Air Flight 858. Kim Hyon-hui was 25 years old. She was told that her assignment was ordered directly by Kim Jong-il (son of then president Kim Il-sung) in a handwritten note and that if the mission was successful, it would lead to the reunification of the two Koreas. She would return home a hero and no longer need to serve as a spy.

The two Kims travelled through Moscow, Budapest and Vienna before meeting up with other North Korean agents in Belgrade. They were given the materials for the bomb which was disguised as a radio and a liquor bottle and were to detonate using a timer. They left the bomb in the overhead compartment of the first leg of flight 858, exited the flight in Abu Dhabi. Originally, they planned to travel to Amman and then Rome, but there were complications with their visas and they boarded a flight to Bahrain. In Bahrain, there was a problem with flights and they couldn’t get out for two more days. They booked a flight to Rome, but when they returned to the airport, their travel paths and her passport came under scrutiny and they were not allowed to board their flight. Kim Hyon-hui also tried to take a police officer’s firearm, which raised suspicions against her. As they were held for questioning in the presence of a Japanese diplomat, they both attempted to use their cyanide capsules. Kim Hyon-hui was taken to a hospital and later transferred to Seoul.

Confession and Investigation

Kim Hyon Hui’s trials garnered heavy attention from the press.

South Korea immediately asked for the extradition of Kim Hyon-hui (known at this point as Mayumi Hachya) back to South Korea. Bahraini authorities agreed that there was enough evidence that both Kims were North Korean spies and Kim Hyon-hui was sent to Seoul. For a number of days, Kim Hyon-hui acted as though she was a Chinese orphan raised in Japan. As she sat in prison, she was allowed to watch South Korean television and at one point was driven around the city. She says that she began to realize that the picture that had been created for her of life in South Korea – one of underdevelopment and poverty – was not true. She understood that bombing the plane would not create reunification of the Koreas and that she had taken innocent lives. She realized that she had been used by North Korea. After eight days in prison in Seoul, she threw herself into the arms of a female investigator, asked for forgiveness and confessed.

Two North Korean agents, one dead and one confessed. This seems like a very straightforward case of terrorism. But the details around the edges are muddier than that.

The investigation into the plane itself only lasted ten days. An airplane’s “black box” can send out a ping signal for around 30 days. The investigation was done by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and did not really involve the Ministry of Transportation at all. The search for the plane only lasted a few days. The airplane was not found and the investigation was closed. It is important to remember that the leadership in South Korea was a dictatorship. No one had the luxury to truly question the methods or thoroughness of the investigation. However, it was later widely criticized that the investigation was too brief and poorly done. It is probable that the capture of Kim Hyon-hui made authorities believe that further investigation was not necessary, despite the fact the families of the victims were begging for further investigation.

Aftermath

Despite the the bombing of KAL flight 858, the Seoul Olympic was held without getting derailed.

The incident infuriated the South Korean people. The lack of investigation or interest in recovering the plane and therefore absence of closure for families was cruel. Conspiracy theories began to appear immediately and the US released its investigation documentation to put the rumors to rest. The citizens were already at a level of heightened tension with regard to Chun’s dictatorial regime and open elections were only a couple of weeks away. South Koreans wanted justice for the bombing. South Korean’s attitudes toward the North and toward reunification changed after this and were much more negative and hardened. Roh Tae-woo, the handpicked successor of Chun Doo-hwan, easily won the presidential elections, despite predictions that the opposition would win.

It was discovered that the Japanese passport in the name of Sinichi Hachiay that Kim Seung-Il used was a very good copy from a real passport, but had been copied by a North Korean operative in Japan who borrowed the original from its owner. Japan, at a UN Security meeting, expressed anger and alarm that had both North Koreans succeeded in committing suicide, the incident could have been blamed on Japan. North Korea denied involvement in the bombing. No resolution declaring the act as a terrorist incident by North Korea was signed because all of the evidence, except for Kim’s testimony, was circumstantial.

The United States named North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism as a result of the bombing.

Because no agreements were achieved to have a dual hosting of the 1988 Olympics in both Koreas and because threats had been made by the North to interrupt the Games if an agreement couldn’t be reached, it is assumed that the purpose of bombing of KAL Flight 858 was to create internal chaos in South Korea, to disrupt the Olympics and to dissuade people from other countries coming to the Olympics. Kim’s testimony corroborates this theory. In the end, there was a minor boycott of countries to the Games, but only by Cuba, Ethiopia, Nicaragua and Madagascar. The larger communist countries all participated in the Games. The 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics were an overall success and came at a time when the country needed to feel successful. Controversies beyond the boycott existed, including the forced incarceration of anyone on the street, which included disabled people, orphans, unhoused people who were subjected to forced labor, abused, beaten, raped in the detention facilities.

In 2019, documents from the South Korean government that had been classified were publicly released and brought more mystery and intrigue into the incident. Chun’s government dispatched the Foreign Minister to Bahrain immediately after Kim Hyon-hui was arrested and insisted that she be returned to South Korea before the elections. He pushed repeatedly to get her back into South Korea by December 15, the day before the elections and that did happen.

Diplomatic Document which were exchanged between South Korean Government and Bahrain on the schedule of Kim Hyon Hui’s extradition.

Declassified South Korean governmental documents released in 2017 show the intent of the South Korean government to use the bombing in the elections. Handwritten notes say that the bombing should be framed as a terror attack by North Korea:

“North Korea’s brutality should be condemned worldwide so that its authority be diminished. By increasing the population’s suspicious towards North Korea and our desire for security, an environment that is favorable toward the upcoming elections should be created.”

If you have a population that is scared about security because of a recent terror attack to a civilian airline, who are you going to elect? Probably someone with a military background, which is exactly who Chun and Roh were. There is nothing more deplorable than the manipulation of a true tragedy and loss of lives to manipulate an election. This stands out as a true evil and heartless political move.

After her confession, Kim Hyon-hui was eventually sentenced to death in March 1989. She had presumed all along that she would be put to death. However, she was pardoned by President Roh later that year, causing anger and desperation to victims’ families. He said that she was a victim of North Korea as well and had been brainwashed and used by them. The reality is probably that she had too much value to South Korea for them to kill her. They wanted her alive to obtain as much information about the North’s training of spies as possible.

Kim Hyon Hui currently lives in Korea and occasionally makes appearances on TV.

She wrote a book, with the assistance of a ghost writer who was assigned to her, and it was published in 1993. Tears of My Soul is still available in English. It tells about her training in North Korea, how she was taught by Japanese that were abducted by North Korea for the purpose of training North Korean spies. She was put on a speaking tour to promote the book. There have been questions about the voracity of some of the book and some of her story. She speaks with great emotion about the fate of her family in North Korea, who she heard from a later defector, were seen in a labor camp. She certainly was revictimized by the South Korean government as a propaganda tool against the North. She has given proceeds from the book to both the victims’ families as well as families of the abducted Japanese.

Some reports have questioned if her interviews were partly coerced. No one had questioned that she was a North Korean spy nor that she was on KAL Flight 858. But her narrative might have been guided and edited. Given what the declassified documents say, this is very plausible. However, there was a campaign by the Roh Moo-hyun administration in 2003 to frame Kim’s story as fake and Kim wrote letters saying that the Roh administration pressured her to say that Kim Jong-il had not ordered the bombing. They presented a complete conspiracy theory. This convinced the ghost writer, Noh Soo-min, to come forward and say that she had been Kim’s ghost writer and that she was fully convinced not only that Kim was North Korean but also that her story was true.

In 2007, The Truth and Reconciliation Commission reopened an investigation into the bombing of KAL Flight 858 at the request of 73 family members of victims. No remains of the plane or victims had been found, leaving questions and suspicions. In 2020, part of the plane seemed to be identified in the ocean off of Myanmar. South Korea wanted to bring it to the surface but could not reach an agreement with the military government of Myanmar to do so.

Families of the victims continue to anguish in frustration and many have fallen into whirlpool of conspiracies that surround the incident. In 2018, a group of them sued Kim Hyon-hui for libel.

Conclusions?

Dictator Chun Doo-hwan wanted to show the world that Korea was a stable and prosperous country, which was at the core of his bid to host the 1988 Summer Olympics. As the Olympics grew nearer, he wanted to control the politics of South Korea and the world’s narrative about North Korea.

North Korea wanted to somehow share the limelight with South Korea for the 1988 Summer Olympics. It isn’t clear or certain if they just wanted to disrupt the Games or equally share a role. Early questions about how North Korea could or would open its borders to the world never really got answered. It is clear that there was a very long dialogue with the IOC on the subject.

Chun manipulated the narrative about the bombing to assure his selected successor would win the presidential election and was successful.

North Korea wanted to sew chaos into the South Korean presidential elections and disrupt the smooth execution of the 1988 Seoul Olympics by bombing a South Korean passenger plane.

The surviving families of the victims are still looking for answers on their families’ deaths.

Despite the bombing and the manipulation of its narrative, the Seoul Olympics were an overall success.

Kim Hyon-hui has lived her life as a pawn of both the North and South Korean governments. The absolute truth of every detail of her story may never be fully known, but she lives her life in hiding.

Families of the victims of the bombing of KAL Flight 858 are still left without closure and with incomplete answers to questions. There is no wreckage and there are no bodies to bring them closure and peace. This is really the tragedy of the incident. 38 years have passed and there are still no proof other than Kim’s testimony as to what exactly happened. Suspicions were raised by the speed and nature of the investigation into the bombing and its conclusion, which don’t help calm the frustrations and only provoke conspiracy theories. The organization of victims’ families continues to fight for more information.

This tragic incident and chapter in Korea’s history is painful to remember and even more painful because of unanswered questions.

Dramas

Film:

Mayumi: Virgin Terrorist (1990) – Unfortunately, this film is not currently streaming

Documentary:

This is a very interesting documentary that brings up questions surrounding Chun’s motivations for a quick end to the investigation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ScapZwa6s&t=1278s

* The Drama Reborn Rich (2022) mentions the incident in one of its episodes.

THIS MONTH IN KOREAN HISTORY - Nov 2025

Tragedy and Mysteries of Korean Air Flight 858