Documents / Hearing transcript

Terauchi interview transcript, Dick Gordon, 2 Jan 1987

FAA via National Archives / The Black Vault · 20 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

K. Terauchi No, no, no .•. um, ah I saw, um, mothership. Taipai, Kushung,
Formosa, south of Formosa.
R. Gordon Around, near Formosa.
K. Terauchi Yeah ah no
F. Fujii This Tiapai mainland China
R. Gordon Uh uh
K. Terauchi And Taipai, Kushung is here, so ah this cargo flight ah I took
off ah 2 am midnight, after midnight, after takeoff. When we
start climb we saw left-hand side big mothership, but ah •.• it
was so wierd, I ignored it (did not look).
F. Fujii Cause he wasn't feeling well •..
R. Gordon No I can understand that, but that was the first time?
K. Terauchi Big Ship - yes and the second time ah, the, in my home I saw a
sky clear daytime; ah, we can, we saw bright lights, I guess
maybe ah 10,000 feet so ah .•. the light continued for about
ten minutes.
F. Fujii The light continued for about ten minut~s, so ah disappeared
suddenly.
K. Terauchi It's ah I guess this one.
R. Gordon Okay now this one you saw off mainland China what timeframe did
that happen, when did that happen?
F. Fujii What - time was it?
K. Terauchi 2 am
R. Gordon When last month
Interruption
R. Gordon Okay, excuse me one moment, but ah ••• Okay Frank I was trying
to figure out that first sighting last year or this year
K. Terauchi Five years ago
R. Gordon Oh five years ago, just trying to get the timeframe that we
sighted these things ah, the next one was that we wanted to talk
about •
F. Fujii Was it the first experience for the crew members?
2

About this file

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.