733667-001-011-0099

OTHER

AI Summary

This document details two incidents of unidentified air traffic sightings reported by flight crews in Alaska in January 1987. The first incident involved an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 that detected a fast-moving target on its radar, while the second incident involved a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 pilot who reported unusual lights in front of his aircraft.

Key Findings

- Alaska Airlines flight #53 reported unidentified air traffic on January 29, 1987. - The target moved at approximately 5 miles per second on radar. - No visual confirmation of the target was made by the flight crew. - The area was outside FAA radar coverage, and military had no aircraft in the vicinity. - Japan Airlines flight #628 reported unusual lights on January 11, 1987.

OCR Text

Paul Steucke, FAA Maren 5, 1907 Alaskan Region 701 C St. Box 14 Anch. AK 99513 UNIDENTIFIED AIR TRAFFIC SIGHTINGS, ALASKA (1) An Alaska Airlines flight crew of a Boeing 737 aircraft, flight #53, enroute from Nome to Anchorage, Alaska, on January 29, 1987, reported to the FAA Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control Center, the sighting of unidentified air traffic on their onboard weather radar system. The incident occurred at about 6:39 pm, 60 miles west of the community of McGrath, which is approximately 200 miles northwest of Anchorage. The aircraft was flying at 35,000 feet altitude at night, and the weather was clear. Both pilots noticed the target on their weather radar scope and looked out the window to see if there was any "traffic" in front of them. At no time did either crewmember see anything outside the aircraft. The area is not within radar coverage of the FAA and the military reported they did not have any aircraft operating in the area at the time. The flight crew of the Alaska Airlines passenger aircraft reported that the target on their radar moved at a very high rate of speed, approximately 5 miles on each sweep of the radar (5 miles per second). As the target moved off their radar in front of them, they changed the range of their radar from 50 miles to 100 miles and saw the target briefly before it became lost in the ground clutter created by the Alaska Range of mountains. The flight crew was interviewed by FAA inspectors when they landed at Anchorage. The FAA has no opinions or conclusions regarding the sighting. (2) On January 11, 1987, at approximately 7:30 am (Sunday), Captain Kenjyu Terauchi, piloting Japan Airlines flight #628, a Boeing 747 aircraft from Iceland to Japan via Anchorage, Alaska, reported to the FAA Air Route Traffic Control Center in Anchorage, that he was seeing a group of unusual lignts in front of his aircraft. MOPrC.ece

Metadata

Agency
—
Classification
UNCLASSIFIED
Department
National Archives and Records Administration
Confidence85
Credibility90

NARA Source

NAID
733667
File
733667-001-011-0099.jpg
Type
image/jpeg

No machine-readable OCR text for this asset. Photographs without captions may have no extractable text.

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