Ground radars were getting occasional paints on him, enough to plot his track, but jets in the air vectored to his location failed to see him, and their look-down radars weren't good enough to dredge him out of the clutter. True, they didn't want another KAL, but they had to verify it was truly some innocent civilian, and not a sophisticated stealthy attack of some kind, and they were having a hard time doing it.I thought they were tracking him but didn't fire because they didn't want a KAL007 all over again...
That Cuban AN-2 cropduster that dropped in on us could have been lugging a pretty sizable nuke instead of the 28 refugees that were packed into its pesticide hopper.
Cheers,
Wes