Aviation journalist Tyler Rogoway just posted an article about a recent incident where airliners were asked to visually identify an unknown white aircraft estimated to be around FL370. At some point Portland Air Guard F-15C's were launched with no joy. No transponder or TCAS target, just visual and a primary radar return:
Airliners And F-15s Involved In Bizarre Encounter With Mystery Aircraft Over Oregon
Something quite out of the ordinary occurred in the skies over Oregon on October 25th, 2017. A mystery aircraft was flying in daylight hours among the steady stream of airliners that traverse from south to north, between locales in California and Nevada and cities like Portland and Seattle and beyond. The incident began, at least as best we can tell, around 4:30pm near the California-Oregon border and resulted in multiple pilot eyewitnesses, recorded air traffic control audio, and eventual confirmations from both the FAA and North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) that it did indeed occur.
Rogoway links to some LiveATC.net audio that has the controller ask Southwest 4712 OAK-PDX, United 612 SFO-PDX and SkyWest 3478 PDX-SMF for visual tracking information.
Here are slightly different links with both sides of the ATC conversation starting about 21 minutes into the first clip:
http://archive-server.liveatc.net/km...2017-0030Z.mp3
http://archive-server.liveatc.net/km...2017-0100Z.mp3
From Tyler's article:
After reading this account and listening to the audio it was clear that the incident was worth looking into on a much deeper level, and that's what we did, inquiring with the 142nd Fighter Wing based at Portland International Airport, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), and the FAA about the odd ordeal.
NORAD's reply was quick and clear. An incident involving multiple airline crews, air traffic control, and F-15Cs from the 142nd Fighter Wing based out of Portland did occur. According to the limited information NORAD supplied, airliner pilots were asked by FAA air traffic controllers to help track and possibly identify a "white aircraft" traveling in the flightlevels nearby—roughly between 35,000 and 40,000 feet based on the radio recordings. NORAD also said that the incident did result in F-15s from Portland being scrambled to investigate, but by the time they got up and "looked around" the mystery aircraft couldn't be found.
A quick note on the fighter jet aspect of this story—the 142nd Fighter Wing operates F-15Cs upgraded with the most capable air-to-air radar set in the world (AN/APG-63V3) and Sniper advanced targeting pods for long-rang visual identification. Their pilots are some of the best in the world and are highly trained in the homeland air defense mission. The fact that they "didn't find anything" is surprising to say the least. Maybe this was due to the nature of the aircraft being searched for, or the possibility that they launched long after it was first sighted, or that we simply aren't being told the whole story.
Drug runner Lear 25 with the transponder off? Northbound?
