On this day in conspiracies

Ezaki escapes on his own from a warehouse in Ibaraki, Osaka, roughly three days into his captivity, and the ransom is never paid. The kidnappers vanish.

Computer specialist Michael Riconosciuto files a court affidavit claiming he installed a secret “back door” into PROMIS so that copies sold to foreign governments could be secretly monitored. Eight days later he is arrested on unrelated drug charges, which he says were a setup to silence him.

The Bradley family, parents Ron and Iva and their two adult children, Amy, 23, and Brad, 21, board Royal Caribbean's Rhapsody of the Seas in San Juan, Puerto Rico, for a Caribbean cruise routed through Aruba and Curacao.

The NTSB publishes its Aircraft Accident Brief (AAB-02/01). It finds the probable cause to be “the airplane's departure from normal cruise flight and subsequent impact with the Atlantic Ocean as a result of the relief first officer's flight control inputs,” adding that the reason for those inputs was not determined. The report avoids the words “suicide” and “criminal.”

The governor-appointed Flint Water Advisory Task Force issues its final report, concluding the crisis was a case of government failure and environmental injustice and placing primary responsibility on the MDEQ. The following February, the Michigan Civil Rights Commission finds that systemic racism helped create and prolong the crisis.