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Package compiled for FAA managers

FAA via National Archives / The Black Vault · 122 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 3 …Investi gation of Japan Air Lines flight 1628 Sighting of Unidentified Air Traffic on November 17…
  • p. 5 …but •.• JL1628 = Japan Air Lines flight #1628 Rl.5 = Controller positicn, Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control…
  • p. 7 …sixty one line. Approach. Look at your radar. We got a Japan Air one six~ eight…
  • p. 82 …a report concerning the incident to Japan Airlines Flight 1628 (JL1628) north of Fairbanks, Alaska on…
  • p. 107 …86 unidentified object sighting by Japan Air Lines flight 1628. (5 pages) PLEASE COMPLETE AND RETURN…
R. Gordon Same distance apart Now do you think t hat wa s just the
mothership and then these little things were •.•
K. Terauchi But, yes, that right
R. Gordon I mean they were moving along, at that time where were these
lights, captain?
F. Fujii (Japanese) disappear
R. Gordon Okay, okay
K. Terauchi Then we find this light, so I think this one is light, but I
think now this is engine, so ah, same type of engine, the same
logic ••• the same type of engine. This one and this one, the
same logic, this point and this point are the same just bigger in
size. This is the small one so it looked like this, but the
bigger one, I could not see but only here, small size, big size,
same technology. Yeah
R. Gordon Oh, oh
F . Fujii The mothership seems like it, he said that, this, this, same
technology, type of engine
R. Gordon Well they're alot, much larger.
K. Terauchi Yes, much .larger .
R. Gordon So this right here would be ah, sitting . . .
s . Mimoto No, this light is sitting here
K. Terauchi Yeah , yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah . . .
R. Gordon Only much larger (garbled)
K. Terauchi Yeah much larger, much power. But, this color is white uh ••.
it ' s ah um dark white pole ••• weak light •••
(unintelligible)
R. Gor don Maybe because it's so much bigger.
K. Ter auchi Yeah
R. Gor don Now this distance, now you were speaking of these were fairly
close uh?
K. Terauchi Hum uh, ah distances is ah, ah, not this, this one ah, 500, ah
be t ween 500 and 1 , 000 feet .
R. Gordon Okay, out fr om you , and then i t took off and went out here and
maybe thi s is, ah, you said fi ve to seven miles or something on
the radar.
5 _,..

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Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 122 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.