1983: Korean airliner 'shot down'
The United States has accused the USSR of shooting down a civilian airliner which is missing off Russia's eastern coast.
All 269 people on board the Korean Airlines flight KAL 007 are presumed dead.
Moscow has so far only admitted to an incident with an "unidentified aircraft" in Soviet airspace.
The Boeing 747 was flying from the USA to Seoul via Anchorage. It is believed to have strayed north of its scheduled course towards the Soviet island of Sakhalin.
The US Secretary of State, George Shultz, demanded a full explanation from Moscow. He told reporters he was confident the USSR was to blame.
"At least eight Soviet fighters reacted at one time or other to the airliner," he said.
Japanese monitors said they heard a Soviet pilot telling his ground controllers that he had taken aim at the plane and had fired. The aircraft disappeared from radar screens 12 minutes later.
The military complex near Sakhalin and the naval base at the port of Vladivostok are in one of Russia's strategically most sensitive areas.
Five years ago the Russians shot down a Korean airliner after it changed its course and flew over the top secret base at Murmansk.
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The Cold War - features and multimedia on the hostilities