On 29 November 1987, the aircraft flying that route exploded in mid-air upon the detonation of a bomb planted inside an overhead storage bin in the airplane's passenger cabin by two North Korean agents.

The agents, acting upon orders from the North Korean government, planted the device before disembarking from the aircraft during the first stop-over, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

After crossing the Austrian border, the guidance officer with whom they had stayed in Budapest gave the pair two forged Japanese passports, posing as tourists, father Hachiya Shinichi (蜂谷眞一) and daughter Hachiya Mayumi (蜂谷眞由美) staying in the Am Parkring Hotel in Vienna, the two purchased tickets from Austrian Airlines for flights that would take them from Vienna to Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), then on to Baghdad, Abu Dhabi, and finally Bahrain.

[8] Around a month before the attack, it had been recently repainted in the new Korean Air livery with an official airline sticker for the upcoming 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

[10] Many of the 113 South Korean nationals were young workers who were returning to their home country after working for several years in the construction industry in the Middle East.

[11] According to testimony at a United Nations Security Council meeting, on 15 December 1987, Kim was transferred to Seoul, South Korea, where she recovered from the poison and, initially, said she was a Chinese orphan who grew up in Japan and said that she was not connected to the attack.

At the hearing, the main evidence against Kim was the cigarettes, which, analysis showed, were the type used by a number of other North Korean agents apprehended in South Korea.

Therefore, any State-directed terrorist threat ... is naturally fraught with dangers for world stability and peace.The escape route, she said, was to be from Abu Dhabi via Amman to Rome, but the pair were diverted to Bahrain due to visa complications.

Three years later, she was educated at a secret and elite espionage school run by the North Korean Army, where she was trained to kill with her hands and feet and to use rifles and grenades.

In 1987, aged 25, Kim was ordered to detonate a bomb aboard a South Korean jetliner, an attack that she was told would reunify her divided country forever.

She also said that the order for the bombing had been "personally penned" by Kim Jong Il, the son of North Korean supreme leader Kim Il Sung, who had wanted to destabilize the South Korean government, disrupt its upcoming 1988 parliamentary elections, and frighten international teams from attending the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul later that year.

[5] Writing in The Washington Post on 15 January 1988, journalist Peter Maass stated that it was not clear to him if Kim was coerced in her remarks or was motivated by remorse for her actions.

In January 2020, a South Korean television news team from Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation reported that they may have found the main wreckage at a depth of 52 metres (170 ft) under the Andaman Sea.

[citation needed] Grainy images from underwater cameras were shown on South Korean TV[18] and, although there was no official confirmation that this was KAL 858 or its location, some families of the victims held a news conference demanding the fuselage be salvaged.

Charles E. Redman, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, said in January 1988 that the incident was an "act of mass murder," adding that the administration had "concluded that the evidence of North Korean culpability is compelling.

"[21] The action was discussed at length in at least two United Nations Security Council meetings, where the allegations and evidence was aired by all sides,[22][23] but no resolution was passed.

[25] In 2001, right-wing activists and relatives of the victims killed in the attack demanded that Kim Jong Il be arrested for terrorism offences when he visited Seoul later in the year.

[26] The leader of a right-wing South Korean group, lawyer Lee Chul-sung, said, "Kim Jong Il must be arrested and punished if he comes to Seoul without admitting his criminal acts and offering an apology and compensation.

[28] The book details her early training and life in China, Macao, and across Europe, carrying out the bombing, her consequent trial, reprieve, and integration into South Korea.

It is also believed that Kim Jong Il masterminded the Rangoon bombing of 1983, in which North Korea attempted to assassinate South Korean president, Chun Doo-hwan.

[30] Kim today resides in an undisclosed location and remains under constant protection for fear of reprisals, from either victims' families or the North Korean government, which has described her as a traitor to their cause.

[31] The Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigated the matter and found out that the bombing was "not a manipulation" by the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS).