page_title: Felix Moncla
section_title: USAF Accident Investigation Report
hierarchical_section_title: Felix Moncla / USAF Accident Investigation Report
caption_attribution_description: English: Lt. Gene Moncla by T-33 at Truax Field, Madison, Wisconsin in 1953 -
context_page_description: First Lieutenant Felix Eugene Moncla Jr. was a United States Air Force pilot who disappeared while performing an air defense intercept over Lake Superior in 1953. This is sometimes known as the Kinross Incident, after Kinross Air Force Base, where Moncla was on temporary assignment when he disappeared.
  The U.S. Air Force reported that Moncla had crashed and that the object of the intercept was a Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft. According to the report, the pilot of the Canadian aircraft was later contacted and stated that he did not see the intercepting plane and did not know that he was the subject of an interception.
  However, on several occasions, the RCAF denied that any of their aircraft was involved in any incident on that day, in correspondence with members of the public asking for further details of the intercept.
context_section_description: The official USAF Accident Investigation Report states the F-89 was sent to investigate an RCAF C-47 Skytrain which was travelling off course.
  The F-89 was flying at an elevation of 8000 feet when it merged with the other aircraft, as was expected in an interception. Its IFF signal also disappeared after the two returns merged on the radar scope. Although efforts to contact the crew on radio were unsuccessful, the pilot of another F-89 sent on the search stated in testimony to the accident board that he believed that he had heard a brief radio transmission from the pilot about forty minutes after the plane disappeared.
  Air Force investigators reported that Moncla may have experienced vertigo and crashed into the lake. The Air Force said that Moncla had been known to experience vertigo from time to time: "Additional leads uncovered during this later course of the investigation indicated that there might be a possibility that Lt. Moncla was subject to attacks of vertigo a little more than the normal degree. Upon pursuing these leads, it was discovered that statements had been made by former members of Lt. Moncla's organization but were not first hand evidence and were regarded as hearsay." Pilot vertigo is not listed as a cause or possible cause in any of the USAF Accident Investigation Board's findings and conclusions.
  The official accident report states that when the unknown return was first picked up on radar, it was believed to be RCAF aircraft "VC-912" but it was classified as "UNKNOWN" because it was off its flight plan course by about 30 miles. This assertion was emphatically denied by the pilot of this RCAF flight, Gerald Fosberg, when he was interviewed for the David Cherniack documentary "The Moncla Memories" produced for Vision TV's Enigma series.
  The USAF also provided an alternative explanation to UFO investigator Donald Keyhoe. In his 1955 book, The Flying Saucer Conspiracy, Keyhoe describes his investigation into the F-89's disappearance which began the night of the incident; when he received a phone call telling him of "a rumor out at Selfridge Field that an F-89 from Kinross (sic) was hit by a flying saucer". A follow-up telephone call to Public Information Officer Lt. Robert C. White revealed that "the unknown in that case was a Canadian DC-3. It was over the locks by mistake". The "locks" refers to the restricted air space over the locks at Sault Ste. Marie, on the U.S.–Canada border at the southeast end of Lake Superior.
caption: Lt. Gene Moncla by T-33 at Truax Field in Madison, Wi.
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