733667-02-001-0017

» Amociated Press The Federal Aviation Administration has stepped up its investigation of wa- vering li that dogged a Japan Air vay Cargo\jet across Alaska’s night for nearly} an hour in November, an of icial said Sunday. “We're looking at it to ensure that somebody didn’t violate airspace we control,”” said FAA spokesman Paul Steucke, “We looked at it about six weeks ago, but since then we've gotten a lot of public interest, so we went back and re-interviewed the pilot.” The veteran pilot, Kenji Terauchi, told investigators two of the lights were small, perhaps no larger than eight feet across. He said the third light was on an aircraft, a huge darkened globe with a diameter of perhaps two aircraft car- riers placed end-to-end, Steucke said. Terauchi said the large UFO showed up on his cockpit weather radar. But im- ages on military radar screens at the time were dismissed as “clutter,” and a blip that showed up on FAA screens was analyzed as a coincidental “split image” of the aircraft, Steucke said. Radar tapes, transcribed interviews and radio messages are to be.sent to the @vestigators give No vember UFO FAA in Washington, D.C., later this week for review, Steucke said. A -JAL spokeswoman Sunday said Terauchi was on a flight to Europe and wasunavailable. °* Flight 1628, with a three-man crew, left Iceland on Nov. 17 with a load of wine bound for Tokyo from Paris. Ter- auchi and his crew boarded the Boeing 747 in Iceland for the Anchorage leg of the trip. The evening sky was clear as the jet, cruising at 525 knots, crossed into Alaska from Canada, just northeast of Fort Yukon. As the plane flew at 35,000 ANCE Th Meg = feet, Terauchi said he saw three lights ; eight miles in front of his aircraft. i The pilot reported the lights were yellow, amber and green, Steucke said, ut not red, the international color for aircraft beacons. “The two smaller ones moved a little bit, changed their angle. The smaller ones did not show up on the weather radar onboard,” Steucke said. “The larger one did. “It appeared to him it might be possi- . ble that the lights might be exhaust pipes, they kind of wavered but did not blink. His main concern was trying to sighting a second look determine whether he was overtaking another aircraft.” Steucke said the pilot reported he dimmed cockpit lights to ensure he was not seeing a reflection. ; “He flew for about six minutes be- ; fore he decided to report anything,” Steucke said. “I can’t say I blame him for that.” * Terauchi radioed Anchorage FAA air controllers, who direct all aircraft traf- fic in the state, except for planes near airports, Steucke said. Fairbanks con- ‘trollers checked their screens but saw only Flight 1628, Stuecke said. J-5- 7 wee Be eee ee Witte ship ceeccests Sy eed