Editing Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (section)

===Russian diver reports===
[[File:Moneron Island.jpg|thumb|[[Moneron Island]]]]
In 1991, after the [[collapse of the Soviet Union]], the Russian newspaper ''[[Izvestia]]'' published a series of interviews with Soviet military personnel who had been involved in [[Marine salvage|salvage]] operations to find and recover parts of the aircraft.<ref name="Illesh-Eng"/> After three days of searching using [[Naval trawler|trawlers]], [[side-scan sonar]], and [[diving bell]]s, Soviet searchers located the aircraft wreckage at a depth of {{convert|174|m|ft}} near Moneron Island.<ref name="Illesh-Eng"/><ref name="Izvestia-19910521">{{cite news |newspaper=[[Izvestia]] |date=May 21, 1991 |page=6 |author=Andrey Illesh |title=?}}</ref> Since no human remains or luggage were found on the surface in the impact area, the divers expected to find the remains of passengers who had been trapped in the submerged wreckage of the aircraft on the seabed. When they visited the site two weeks after the shoot-down, they found that the wreckage was in small pieces, and found no bodies:

<blockquote>I had the idea that it would be intact. Well, perhaps a little banged up... The divers would go inside the aircraft and see everything there was to see. It was completely demolished, scattered about like kindling. The largest things we saw were the especially strong braces—they were about one and a half or two meters long and 50–60 centimeters wide. As for the rest—broken into tiny pieces...<ref name="Illesh-Eng"/></blockquote>

According to ''Izvestia'', the divers had only ten encounters with passenger remains (tissues and body parts) in the debris area, including one partial torso.<ref name="WWI">''World Wide Issues'', February 6, 1991, p. 21</ref>

<blockquote>''Tinro ll'' submersible Captain Mikhail Igorevich Girs' diary: Submergence 10 October. Aircraft pieces, wing spars, pieces of aircraft skin, wiring, and clothing. But—no people. The impression is that all of this has been dragged here by a [[trawl]] rather than falling down from the sky...<ref>''Izvestia'', 28 May 1991, p. 8</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>Vyacheslav Popov: "I will confess that we felt great relief when we found out that there were no bodies at the bottom. Not only were no bodies; there were also no suitcases or large bags. I did not miss a single dive. I have quite a clear impression: The aircraft was filled with garbage, but there were really no people there. Why? Usually when an aircraft crashes, even a small one... As a rule, there are suitcases and bags, or at least the handles of the suitcases."{{citation needed|date=June 2023}}
</blockquote>

Some civilian divers, whose first dive was on September 15, two weeks after the shoot-down, state that Soviet military divers and trawls had been at work before them:

<blockquote>Diver Vyacheslav Popov: "As we learned then, before us the trawlers had done some 'work' in the designated quadrant. It is hard to understand what sense the military saw in the trawling operation. First, drag everything haphazardly around the bottom by the trawls, and then send in the submersibles?...It is clear that things should have been done in the reverse order."</blockquote>

ICAO also interviewed a number of these divers for its 1993 report: "In addition to the scraps of metal, they observed personal items, such as clothing, documents, and wallets. Although some evidence of human remains was noticed by the divers, they found no bodies."<ref>ICAO '93, Sect. 1.12.4</ref>