Basic
Reporting Data, 5. Werlich notes the time of the ground sightings as beginning
at “0800Z (0300 CDT) UNTIL APPROXIMATELY 1015Z (CDT 0515)” (2). The Air Route
Traffic Control Center would have handed off the B-52 to Minot AFB RAPCON when
it arrived at the 50 nmi clearance, which, according to Werlich, was at 3:00:
“THE AIRCRAFT INITIALLY ARRIVED . . . AT ALMOST THE SAME TIME AS THE FIRST
GROUND SIGHTING.” In fact, the “FIRST GROUND SIGHTING” preceded the arrival of
the B-52 by 45 minutes. The Transcription of Recorded Conversations begins when
the B-52 is on low-approach over the runway heading northwest at 3:34 [3:44],
and affords no clue to the location of the B-52 for the first 34 [44] minutes.
It seems most likely the B-52 remained east of the base practicing
high-altitude maneuvers, and would be located high in the southeast before its
descent (penetration) from FL200 to a low-approach over the runway at 3:34
[3:44]. Regarding “VARIOUS
INSTRUMENT PRACTICE MANEUVERS,” Runyon recalls: “At higher altitude, like for
the vertical S’s we might have gotten a block from 20 to 30; or 30 to 40,000
feet for that. . . . [So nobody could even see you up there.] No. [You don’t
have your landing lights on?] No, no way, and we were probably not over our
base anyway—were out in the middle of nowhere” (2005, 8).