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Package compiled for FAA managers

FAA via National Archives / The Black Vault · 122 pages · text from the file's own layer

This package was compiled by the FAA Alaskan Region Public Affairs Office in Anchorage and sent to FAA managers with a memo from Paul Steucke dated March 5, 1987. It gathers material on the November 17, 1986 sighting by the crew of Japan Air Lines flight 1628: a news release, pilot and controller transcripts, crew interviews and radar analysis. The FAA concluded that it could not confirm the event. It attributed the second radar target to a split, uncorrelated return from the JAL Boeing 747 and planned no further investigation.

  • p. 20 …Gordon Being okay these things here, maybe being each one of these things here, so these…
  • p. 21 …This is the small one so it looked like this, but the bigger one, I could…
  • p. 28 …you estimate the size of the small ships to be? K. Terauchi Ah ••• (unintelligible), up here…
  • p. 30 …Also the other is, that air turbulance be created. So they did not want to leave…
  • p. 38 …There was no danger but it created many questions that a human being cannot answer. Page…
  • p. 43 …However, the center area of the ship where below an engine might be was invisible. The…
K. Terauchi A no, seven, seven or eight miles.
R. Gordon Okay seven or eight miles, that's what they were saying on the
radar.
K. Terauchi Yeah, this later, so we saw about seven or eight miles •••
R. Gordon Okay
K. Terauchi And, 60 degrees left •••
R. Gordon Okay
K. Terauchi So out in here small ship is disappear.
R. Gordon Okay, I understand, now lets (unintelligible) what else, see if I
forget anything, visual was a first, what, you showed me exactly
what you saw. Visually sighting, you saw it first uh?
K. Terauchi First
R. Gordon Okay
F. Fujii And (unintelligible) probably how long had you contacted the
target.
R. Gordon No that's what we were saying, five to six minutes before you
called ATC.
f
K. Terauchi Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
R. Gordon Okay, did the other crew have trouble sighting the object?
F. Fujii Did the rest of the crew see the lights?
K. Terauchi (More Japanese) So I tried to fix it, but I ah, failed.
Laughter
K. Terauchi Just, shutter was open, did not close, so •••
F. Fujii Yes every crew has seen it.
R. Gordon Okay all the crew members they did see it. Okay. Laughter •••
Yeah that's what I would do (more laughter)
F. Fujii What type of onboard radar?
R. Gordon Yeah , what type of radar was onboard, that ah ?
K. Terauchi I t wa s the kind, ditigal, but I don not know.
6

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Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 122 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.