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.
F . Fujii K. Terauchi F. Fujii R. Gordon K. Terauchi R. Gor don Size, estimate, ah, size (More Japanese) Two times, or ah, I guess ah . . . (unintelligible) seven four seven Okay So ah, size is ah, carrier Ah uh, in other words this being the jumbo jet was about as big ss just the light •.• ? K. Terauchi See this is the jumbo jet. 1.5, two times this light. R. Gordon Okay, okay, I have •.• so the side light on this thing was sbout, the jumbo is about two to two-and-a-half time the size of this light, so when you stack 'em up, you •.• K. Terauchi Yeah, yeah, yeah • • • R. Gordon were saying about two times as big as an aircraft carrier. K. Terauchi Yeah, yeah, yeah. R. Gordon Okay K. Terauchi It felt like this big - (he made a circle by using his fingers); seven to eight miles away and it was this big. Normally, an air carrier is seven - eight miles away, it looks like this. F. Fujii Seven or eight miles away, usually the aircrafts are like this • R. Gordon Ah uh, okay F. Fujii About this big so . . . R. Gordon Okay F. Fujii with his estimate. R. Gordon So he's kinda comparing it to another jumbo jet? F. Fujii Yeah, yeah . . . R. Gordon Okay s . Mimoto (More Japanese) Tremendous R. Gordon Oh yeah (laughter) , boy, okay F . Fujii Go for this size here, this one. 11
Hearing transcript, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 20 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.