The incident killed two of the 109 passengers and crew members aboard and forced the plane to make an emergency landing on the frozen Korpijärvi Lake.

[5][6] The aircraft made regular radio check-ins as it flew northwest, the last of which, five hours and twenty-one minutes after takeoff, placed it near CFS Alert on Ellesmere Island.

As the plane did not respond to multiple requests from the ground, an Su-15 interceptor, piloted by Alexander Bosov, was dispatched to intercept the airliner.

[citation needed] According to Kim's account of the attack, the interceptor approached his aircraft from the right side rather than the left as required by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) regulation.

[7] Kim decreased his speed and turned on the navigation lights, indicating that he was ready to follow the Soviet fighter for landing.

According to Soviet media, the airliner flew across the whole Kola Peninsula at a low altitude for about 40 minutes, searching for a place to land.

After several unsuccessful attempts at landing, Kim brought the plane down on the ice of the frozen Korpijärvi Lake [ru] in Karelian ASSR, located approximately 140 kilometres (87 mi) from the Finnish border.

[5] About two hours after the crash landing, Soviet troops reached the plane to begin the rescue effort, by which time Japanese passenger Yoshitako Sugano had died.

[7] However, Tsarkov stated that another Soviet pilot, Anatoly Kerefov, had located Flight 902 and led it to the Afrikanda air base.

[7] On 22 April, the survivors, except the pilot and navigator, were transported via Aeroflot from Kem to Murmansk, then by Pan American World Airways to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport in Finland, where a Korean Air Lines aircraft departed on 23 April for Seoul with the group of Flight 902 survivors and the bodies of those killed.

[12] The Soviet Union refused to cooperate with international experts while they investigated the incident and did not provide any data from the plane's "black box".

[7] The deputy chief commanding officer of Soviet air defense, Yevgeny Savitsky, personally inspected the aircraft's cockpit.