Documents / Document
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.
“air traffic control”18 pages
~Page 12A When they were in front of us, the ships were positioned slightly higher · in altitude than we were, but now they placed themselves sli1htly below the horizon where it was most difficult for us to see. The distance between us was still about seven miles to eight miles visually. When we started to see Ft. Yukon diagonally below us at the ri1ht, the sun was setting down in the Southwest, painting the sky in a slightly red stripe, approximately two to three millimeters and gave a bit of li1ht but the east side was still pitch dark. Far in front of us there : were lights increasing from the U.S. Military Eielson Air Force Base and Fairbanks. The lights were still following us at exactly the same distance; however, it was too dark to identify by only the lights whether or not they were the same two spaceships that appeared in front of us a few minutes ago. It seemed that we were flying in the lighter aide and gave them the advantage of being on the dark side. We had no fears so far but began to worry since we had no idea for their purpose. When the lights from the Eielson . Air Force Base and Fairbanks became clear and bri1ht, two very bright lights appeared suddenly from the North from a belt of lights, perhaps four or five mountains away. [Personal statement concerning JAL Flight 1628 sighting of unidentified air traffic, Nov. 17, 1986. Written by Capt. Kenju Terauchi; translated by Sayoko Mi.mote, FAA Alaskan Region, Airway Facilities Division. Received by FAA 1/2/87]
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.