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.
R. Gordon Same distance apart Now do you think that was 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 i n 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, sit ting .•. S. Mimoto No, this light is sitting here K. Terauchi Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah • • • R. Gordon Only much larger (garbled) K. Te r auchi Yeah much larger, much power. But, this color is whi te uh ••• it's ah um dark white pole ••• weak light .•• (unintelligible) R. Gordon Maybe because it's so much bigger. K. Terauc hi Yea h R. Gordon Now this distance, now you were speaking of these were fairly close uh? K. Te r auchi Hum uh, ah distances is ah, ah, not this, this one a h, 500, a h betwe en 500 and 1,000 f eet. R. Gordon Oka y , out fr om you, and then i t took off and we nt out here and maybe this is, ah, you said five to seven miles or somethihg on the r adar. 5
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.