International law encompasses many aspects that seek to regulate the behavior of States in times of war as well as in times of peace. When a state acts outside the set of international norms, the international community can act in multiple ways, from one extreme to the other. This is what the world saw with the crash of a civilian flight in 1983. On September 1, 1983, Korean Airlines Flight 007 was on the final leg of a flight from New York to Seoul, South Korea . At some point during the flight, for highly speculative reasons, the plane veered off course and crossed the Kamchatka Peninsula into the Soviet Union. The peninsula was home to a top-secret military installation and fighter pilots were sent to intercept the plane. The Soviet Union claims it attempted to communicate with the plane and, receiving no response, the fighter pilot fired two missiles: a heat-seeking missile and a radar-guided missile. It is not clear which missile hit the plane or whether both missiles hit the plane, but the plane crashed into the Sea of ​​Japan and all 269 passengers and crew were killed. Four hours after takeoff, the plane entered Soviet airspace. but the fighter pilots failed to locate the plane, ran out of fuel and returned to base. The flight eventually continued without knowing it was in Soviet airspace. When it re-entered Soviet airspace, the fighter pilots returned thinking it was a military plane. The pilots were instructed to shoot down this time. Tokyo had ordered the plane to climb to 35,000 feet, which the Soviets considered an evasive maneuver and which sealed the plane's fate. The destruction of Flight 007 was not the first... middle of paper ..... ...let's assume that the Soviet Union was not guilty of deliberately shooting down a civilian aircraft or that the world did not simply did not have enough evidence to prove that she had acted aggressively. Works Cited Peter Grier, “The Death of Korean Air Lines Flight 007,” Online Journal of the Air Force Association, Vol. 96, No. 1, January 2013. John Andrew Morton, “The KAL 007 Incident As An Event In The Evolution of International Law,” University of South Carolina School of Law, December 1985. Andreas F Lowenfield, “Looking Back and Looking Ahead,” The American Journal of International Law, vol. 83, no. 2, April 1989, p. 336-341.Peter Grier, “The Death of Korean Airlines Flight 007,” Online Journal of the Air Force Association, Vol. 96, No. 1, January 2013. Donald E Wilkes, Jr., “The Death Flight of Larry (Lawrence) McDonald,” University of Georgia School of Law, September 3, 2003.