Documents / Hearing transcript
This FAA record of interview documents a January 2, 1987 session in Anchorage, Alaska, in which Inspector Richard O. Gordon of FSDO-63 questioned JAL Captain Kenju Terauchi about his crew's November 17, 1986 sighting. Terauchi describes two small craft with exhaust-like lights that flew near his aircraft and a much larger mothership, and says the target appeared green on his onboard radar. He also reports VHF interference and says the objects matched his 360-degree turn and his descent.
“Gordon”19 pages
R. Gordon First time for t he other crew me mbers, okay that's fine. K. Terauchi I think it was the first time. F . Fujii Who was the first person who saw it? K. Terauchi It was me. I saw it in - inside. F. Fujii What did you notice at first? K. Terauchi During first time we saw light, I think a navigation light. R. Gordon Ah ha, but you saw it visually first you didn't pick it up on r a dar or anything you just saw some light out there, okay and that really coinsides with the air traffic statement, you called and said do you have any traffic in my area K. Terauchi Yeah, yeah before, before, about six minutes before I saw this one so ah •.• R. Gordon K. Terauchi R. Gordon F . Fujii R. Gordon K. Terauchi F . Fujii R. Gordon ? R. Gordon K. Terauchi & F . Fujii You were watching him for about five or six minutes before you called • Before I contact Anchorage Center Ah ah, okay Okay fourth question, what did you see exactly shape, light, and all, the shape, lighting, etc. Well if you can just explain these to me cause it looks like you've done alot of drawing here so it's not necessary for you to redraw all this stuff This light was amber and whitish, but, when it came to here it wa s only amber • white light. Why don't I understand. (Japanese) right First of all it's like amber and whitish color, came closely it seems like all the output exhaust position of the jets, all these Challenger Look like something like after burners ••• okay okay, like each one of these was an individual exhaust Yes Okay So this light is special like (Japanese) when ah Challenger, yes like Challenger took off amount of flame going on, we can't see Challenger by this flame 3
Hearing transcript, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 20 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.