Documents / Hearing transcript
This FAA compilation, released through The Black Vault, covers an incident on January 29, 1987 involving Alaska Airlines Flight 53. The Boeing 737 was flying from Nome to Anchorage when its crew saw a fast-moving target on their weather radar about 60 miles west of McGrath, Alaska. The file includes an incident record, a certified controller transcript, the FAA's crew interview statement and a news release. Anchorage Center's radar data showed no such aircraft, and the USAF reported no military traffic in the area.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
STATEMENT OF INTERVIEW WITH ALASKA AIRLINES CREW January 29, 1987 at 1930 AST At approximately 1900 on January 29, 1987, I received a call from Anchorage Center Manager, stating that Alaska Airlines Flight No. 53 had reported to Anchorage Center that it had seen a target on their weather radar and asked if the Center had any other aircraft operating in the area. I informed the ARTCC Manager that I would interview the crew at Anchorage International Airport. I interviewed the crew at Alaska Airlines Operations on January 29, 1987 at approximately 1930 AST. The crew stated that they had departed Nome, Alaska at 1800 enroute to Anchorge. The incident happened approximately 60 miles west of McGrath, Alaska. The aircraft was operating on a heading of East at an altitude of 35,000 feet and an airspeed of Mach .73. The weather was clear and the visibility was unlimited. At approximately 1835 AST the crew noticed a return on the weather radar at their 12 o'clock position and at a range of 25 miles. Both pilots stated that the target was strong and bright. They both looked outside and could not see any lights or targets. Looking back at the radar the target had moved approximately 5 miles further ahead of them to approximately 30 miles. Each sweep of the radar (approximately 1 second) the target would move 5 miles further ahead of them until it went off the radar scope at 50 miles. The captain stated that since the military was having "war games" in the area that it was probably a USAF Aircraft going at a very high rate of speed. He then called Anchorage Center and asked the controller if there was any reported aircraft in the area and reported what he had seen. The area is not within radar coverage of the Anchorage ARTCC. The controller on duty checked with the USAF (Alaska Air Command) and was told the they did not have aircraft operating in that area at that time. Richard O. Gordon Manager AAL FSDO-63
Hearing transcript, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 9 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.