The plane, assigned to the 38th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, had taken off from RAF Brize-Norton in Oxfordshire, England. The mission, code-named BOSTON ...
A few minutes earlier, Capt. John Roche, 28, had been co-piloting the piston-engine aircraft belonging to the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at 21,000 feet over the Sea of Japan near Vladivostok.