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The dialogue between the tower and the pilot sounds like a joke, but two aircraft crews report that they saw a person with a rocket backpack near the Los Angeles airport, flying at a height of 900 meters. US authorities are now investigating the case.
The online platform “Airlive.net” published a recording of the communication between the pilot and the tower since Sunday night (local time):
Pilot: “Tower, American 1997, we just passed a man in a jetpack.”
Tower: “Tower, American 1997. Okay, thanks, was it to your left or to your right?”
Pilot: “To the left about 300 yards (about 270 meters) from us.”
Another pilot confirmed the sighting: “We just saw the jetpack man pass us.” The tower then warned of another plane in the vicinity. The US aviation authority FAA and the FBI are now investigating the reports, but did not provide further information.
“I don’t know of anyone who is so careless as to do something like that”
Seth Young, a professor of aviation at Ohio State University, believes the descriptions are credible. The pilots are trained to recognize even small objects in the air, he told the New York Times. However, flying so close to an aircraft is extremely dangerous as there is a risk of collisions and the person could be sucked into the engines.
Scientists have been working on rocket packs for decades. At the end of World War II, the Wehrmacht is said to have tested “heavenly storms” with which minefields or barbed wire fences were supposed to be overcome. They were never used, however, but a prototype is said to have fallen into the hands of the US Army (you can read more about this here).
Today’s jetpacks are generally only designed for a few minutes’ flight. If the observations in Los Angeles actually involved a person with a jetpack, the reported altitude of one kilometer would be unusually high for that reason alone. According to speculation in the American media, it could be a hoax or a runaway stunt.
In the video: rocket backpacks flying in formation
Various manufacturers around the world are working on rocket packs. The American company “Jetpack Aviation” showed two of the Jetpacks in flight last year. According to the company, its jetpacks could fly up to four kilometers high, but the company does not sell the rocket packs for recreational use. “We don’t know of anyone who works on such a machine and they would be so stupid or reckless to do something like this,” company founder David Mayman told the New York Times.
In recent years, more and more aircraft, such as drones, have gotten in the way of airplanes. That is why there are now strict requirements, especially in the vicinity of airports. Without permission, the observed flying object should not have taken off in Los Angeles. Something like this only happens in Los Angeles, judged one of the air traffic controllers involved.
