Wow, the Russians shot down another plane. I never heard of KAL007 and thought MH17 was the first time this happened. Did any other nation states ever shoot down passenger airplanes?

Full list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_inc...

For completeness: the US navy shot down an Iranian airliner.

The "full list" posted earlier has that one on it.

And Iran shot down a Ukrainian plane.

But yeah it's not unique. In this case it's really tough though because the Soviets knew it was a civilian airliner running with full lights.

Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752

Siberia Airlines Flight 1812