Thomas G. Goduto Interview, 20 February 2001
‹‹ Interview Index
1 /
2 /
3 /
4 /
5 /
6 /
7 /
8 /
9 /
10 /
11 /
12 /
13 /
14 /
15 /
16 /
17 /
18 /
19 /
20 /
21 /
22 /
23 /
24 /
25 /
26 /
27 /
28 /
29 /
30 /
31
| TG: | A radio that's crumping would probably get scratchy, weaker. If it would go immediately, no, that would be unusual. I'd had not heard that. I didn't know that that was— Yeah, that's interesting. That would be some indication of the type of radiation that was affecting the radio system. | |
| TG: | It would be very black and white. It would be here it is and here it isn't. You know, it would be...whether that's a matter of distance or what direction or— | |
| [Switches tape] | ||
| TG: | We're penetrating, which means then we would be getting ready to make an approach. And the runways there, I think, were 29 and 11, so the wind was such that we were using 11, which was not the normal runway. Normally we used 29 'cause prevailing winds were out of the west, which means this night they would've been out of the east. I couldn't tell you what kind of an approach we made. Normally the approaches would either have been, well, one of 3 kinds. ILS—Instrument Landing System approach, a GCA—Ground Control Precision approach or a non-precision approach, so it didn't make any difference, but all 3 had to do with a certain distance away from the runway where you would start your descent beyond the glide slope that would bring it to the runway. And that was about 6 or 7 miles, roughly. And then you'd be on the glide slope as you're coming down and then if we got down to 200 feet then the decision of the pilot was either to land or to go around, and I don't believe we did a touch and go. I think we did a low approach, which meant that when we hit 200 feet the pilot would've put the power back on the airplane and just by so doing, that would make the aircraft hold its altitude and probably ascend a little bit. And then when we got down the runway, then the radar approach control would've told us when to turn off the runway heading, which would've been 110, and then normally would turn you at 90º, but in this case the pattern wasn't 90º. They'd turn us more than 90º to a northerly direction, which you saw here, for a certain amount of time or distance, and then they would turn us again. | |
| INT: | Bring you right back around? | |
| TG: | They would. And they were the ones doing it. We weren't doing it on our own. In other words, our radar wasn't telling the pilot when to turn or whatever. The ground would tell us when to turn. | |
| INT: | Let me ask you this—When you guys were coming down for your approach and that object continued to descend he [McCaslin] set his crosshairs. He knew where that thing was on the ground. | |
| TG: | Yeah. Normally what he would do was he'd put the crosshairs on the end of the runway, because that's where we want to go, right? Well, if you got |
‹‹ Previous Page — Next Page ››
17