News In Brief

USSR will consider memorial service for KAL crash victims

The Soviet Union has said it will treat favorably a Japanese request for a memorial service near the spot where a Soviet fighter plane shot down a South Korean airliner last year, the Foreign Ministry said Saturday.

Soviet fighters shot down a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747, killing all 269 passengers, just to the north of Japan, after it had strayed off course into Soviet airspace.

The families of 28 Japanese passengers on board had asked for a service at sea on September 1, the first anniversary of the incident.