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News clippings

FAA via National Archives / The Black Vault · 51 pages · text from the file's own layer

This FAA file, released through the National Archives and The Black Vault, collects 1987 newspaper clippings about Japan Air Lines Flight 1628. Capt. Kenju Terauchi reported that lights and a huge walnut-shaped object followed his 747 cargo jet over Alaska on November 17, 1986. The articles quote FAA spokesman Paul Steucke saying the radar returns were a split image and military clutter, and report Philip Klass's explanation that Terauchi saw Jupiter and Mars. Terauchi's second sighting in January was attributed to village lights reflecting off ice crystals.

  • p. 8 …fe it ' • an inquiry into a Japan Air Lines pilot's reportthat a UFO followed his…
  • p. 15 …sighted by the crew of a Japan Air Lines Oargo jet last November aren't the…
  • p. 16 …Terauchi, a veteran pilot ferrying JAL Flight 1628 from Iceland to Japan, told United Press International…
  • p. 18 …wa vering ligihs that dogged a Japan Air Lines cargo^jet across Alaska's night sky…
  • p. 28 …Since Anchorage air controllers had registered a radar targefhear flight ' 1628, they called for a backup…
  • p. 44 …CaptainKenju'Terauchi's Japan Air Lines OAL) Boeing 747 cargo jet. flying across the Arctic Circle…
  • p. 51 …sighted by the crew of a Japan Air Lines cargo jet last November aren't the…
w i.ck
DAILY NEWS
•'V
Tuesday. January 6. 1987
in an a^nf miracl^
ORLANDd; FlsL—t was downspmding a few warm holidays'
vdA a friend. His n^e is Gerald
Rutberg, and I've known him since we
were promising young men together.
Rutberg would have made a great
newspaperman. He had all the moves of
a crack investigative reporter. He could
be getting to the bottom of the Iran
arms deal today but he chose to study
the law instead.
"What I do," he has explained to me,
"is try to keep people out of the joint"
For the record, he has a winning
percentage, lights were yellow,
amber and green,.Steucke said but hot the
international color for aifcraft'b^ons.'.;
The pilot said &e large unid6htifi4d'flying
object registered on his cockpit'weather radar.
But images on military radar screens at the time
were dismissed as "clutter," and a blip-
appeared on FAA screens was considered a co-'
incidental "split image" of the plane, Steucke said
"His main concern was trying to:detennine
whether he was overtaking - another' aircraft,"
Steucke said He said the pirot^diinmeit
lights to insure.he was hot see^ia'i^ection.
After about she minutes, Terauchi reported the
lights and air-traffic controllers told him to take
STOP HAIR
LOSS!
REGROW
LOST HAIR!
SFECIAUZIIS PI
TflEATMENTOFACME.
WRINKLES. KfifllASiS. '
VmUBaMlOISOBDERS
OFSKIN.HAIHIUILI'
AOMINISTEHEO IN OFFICE IV
DR.S.MANOa.M.D.
DERMATOLOGIST -
CELEBRATE THE
NEW YEAR WITH
A NEW JOB!
Find the position that's right
for you in the Daily News
NEW YEAR
.MPEN THLU^SD^rMWT
•»; vc
At the? Anchorage FAA center, controllers
following inflight notedoccasional s^ond blip^-
or "split targets," on the screen' near Flight 1628,,'
Steucke said:
The lights- vanished, heading east, when the.-,
JAL jet was about 80 miles north of Anchorage^
Steucke said
MRKING AT ROCKB^msRCENTST
30% fo 70%
OFF

About this file

Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 51 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.