GPS provided dramatically greater coverage and accuracy than radio or radar navigation, but it was supposed to be available only to the military. In 1983, however, the crew of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, flying from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska, made an error in their navigational calculations and accidentally strayed into the prohibited airspace of the USSR. Mistaking the airliner for a spy plane, the Soviets shot it down, killing all 269 people aboard, including Larry McDonald, a US congressman from Georgia. Recognizing that GPS could have prevented this tragedy, President
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