Airline Pilots Report 'Guy In A Jetpack' Flying 3,000 Feet Above Los Angeles

Sep 02, 2020 by apost team

Nowadays, pilots of commercial and non-commercial flights are used to keeping an eye on the sky. Aside from birds that could end up in a plane's engine, drones have also become a problem during recent years. In order to assure a safe flight, pilots are trained to observe the air around them and make out possible obstacles in their path quickly.

This eye for flying details led to two rather interesting reports last Sunday. Two pilots on different planes called the LA International Airport tower with the news that they had just passed a guy operating what seemed to be a jetpack in 3,000 feet height.

The exchange between the tower and the pilots happened around 6:30 PM local time last Sunday. LiveATC.net, which archives and shares recordings of air-traffic-control radio transmissions, has made the whole talk available. At around the five and a half minute mark, one American Airlines pilot can be heard saying: “Tower, American 1997 — we just passed a guy in a jet pack." The operator on the ground, clearly startled, responds: “Were they off to your left side or right side?” - and then the pilot explains that the mystery jetpack user must have been about 300 yards to their left, at a height of about 3,000 feet.

The tower operator clearly doesn't know how to respond to that, when another pilot, flying a JetBlue plane, chimes in: "We only just saw the guy pass by us." You can almost hear the operator shake his head when he answers back: "Only in LA."

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The LA tower then informed the F.B.I and the Federal Aviation Administration of the unexpected airborne traveller and according to NBC News, an investigation has been started. American Airlines did not name the pilot involved, only referring back to the FAA investigation and JetBlue so far declined to comment. Whoever this person might have been, they were lucky not get in the path of any airplane approaching or leaving the LA airport.

In a comment made to the NY Times, Seth Young, himself a pilot and professor of aviation at the Ohio State University, explains that flying so close to landing and starting airplanes is very dangerous:

“The risk is obviously having a collision with that airplane or getting a drone, or the person getting ingested into an engine,” Dr. Young said. “We have these issues with birds flying within congested airspace, as well.”

This is also the reason why both the FAA and the F.B.I are now looking into this incident. While there are no laws on the books about the use of jetpacks, officials are currently ranking it the same as operating a drone around an airport - which is of course forbidden.

What makes this incident even more interesting is that there are almost no known jetpacks capable of reaching such heights or flying for a prolonged period of time. While several builds are capable of short, thrilling flights, technical problems have so far kept jetpacks from being used for more than a few seconds or minutes. The main factor attributing to these problems is fuel efficiency. A jetpack requires tremendous amounts of fuel to reach a good height and stay there. This fuel needs to be stored somewhere and then also adds to the overall weight that has to be lifted - making it the biggest obstacle to jetpack flight so far.

There are some companies and inventors around who want to get past this obstacle. One of them even resides in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles: JetPack Aviation. However, this company is not selling their product for commercial uses and only offers training courses and controlled flights with their equipment. When asked about Sunday's incident, JetPack Aviation's founder David Mayman commented:

“Honestly, we don’t know who’s working on a machine that would be foolish enough or reckless enough to do that.”

What do you think about this curious incident? Would you try out a working jetpack if offered the chance to do so? Would you do it so close to an airport? Pass this story along to your friends to find out what they think!