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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
Tsukuba: It was just at sunset at right front of us. There was a stripe of red line and almost dark, it was almost pitch dark behind us. Beckner: How was the lighting conditions inside the cockpit? Tsukuba: We had night illumination at above sideways. I was using a spot light while calculating the data. I do not remember whether the Captain had the lights turned off or not. There is a switch that can turn the light to regular fluorescent or to dark. It was set to dark. Beckner: How long did you see the object? Tsukuba: The one in front of us, as I mentioned earlier, I saw it for about 10 minutes, then, tha one on our left sida at 9 o'clock, together, a total of 30 minutes. The lights in front of us and the other one were of two absolutely different nature of lights. Beckner: Would you show us what they looked like on this paper? Tsukuba: The lights in front of us were clusters of lights like this. I think they were made of two parts. How should I say this, but the lights were shaped like windows of a passenger aircraft. ·aeckner: What was the shape of the object like? Tsukuba: . I do not know. It was just lights. Tha one in front of us was like an aircraft viewed from another aircraft which was ours. Beckner: Did-the object move with your aircraft when you changed direction or altitude? Tsukuba: When we saw the first one in front of us, we did not change the heading, but the second one, it was really hard to see, I had to try real hard to see it, so we changed heading. I think the object was with us when w• changed altitude. When we changed altitude, I could not sea. The Captain said it was still there, so I felt like it was there. Beckner: Did you see another aircraft? Tsukuba: I saw United Air Line. Beckner: Any other lighted, or unlighted objects? 3
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