Bradford Runyon Interview, 5 May 2000

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INT:	Is this where your experience went more difficult?
BR:	Oh, our radios were out from the time the thing got close to us. And our radios never came back in until 10 miles from the runway, and the navigator said that it set down on the ground and it was off to our left and so anyway, just a few seconds later then our radios came back in so we continued our approach on into Minot.
INT:	In your flying experience, did it ever occur where your radios went dead like that at other times?
BR:	Uh no. Actually I've never had one of our radios go completely bad in a B-52, period.
INT:	So it seemed like it was connected to—
BR:	Oh, it definitely was. And, plus we had 2 different radios and both of them were just completely dead.
INT:	You changed frequency also, didn't you?
BR:	Yes, oh yeah.
INT:	Changing frequency didn't help at all?
BR:	No, uh-uh. No, the radios were just completely dead and so anyway I don't remember whether we made it touch and go. But anyway we proceeded on to the base and then we had a general officer came on the radio and told us to go back and—but, I mean, he could have been patched in from anyplace, so he told us to go back and fly over the object and I really don't remember whether we had film in our Bombay cameras, but we were supposed to take over and fly—over fly the thing and observe it and take pictures if we could. So I never discussed with the nav team whether they were able to take Bombay pictures or not. But anyway, the ground control radar took over and they vectored us back out and put us, just right over the far end of the object.
INT:	Now, they knew it had landed?
BR:	Yes.
INT:	Did your onboard radar—did they know it was—?
BR:	Oh yeah, they knew, you know, right where it set down.

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