Green flare over London @ FL190
 

On Thursday night at around 22.00z, I was flying at FL190 approaching north London on a track towards Dover. A green flare/rocket shot up to our level about 2 miles ahead of us. We were one of 4 aircraft to observe this. ATC were informed and said they would have a look at radar traces to see where the object originated from.

Does anyone have any information on this? Can flares go up that high, if indeed it was a flare? This I find a little worrying.

cheers,
Ten Dollar:

I'd very much doubt that ATC radars would "see" such a thing but it's very interesting.

I'll keep an eye on this thread...

lazer show perhaps ? any gigs on at Knebworth ? was there any cloud ? suppose it was a touch too late and London is a bit far north for the "green flash" phenomenon.... this is jetblast isn't it ?

No obviously they wouldn't see a trace on their radar but I know someone who had a similar incident at Birmingham. From the crew's estimated distance of the flare infront of them ATC worked out based on the aircrafts location on the screen a rough area the flare could of come from on the ground. Local Police were called and responded immediately to a large playing field in that area.

Ive checked with a friend who's into developing rockets and flares and he's adamant that to develop and test fire a rocket which is capable of reaching those sort of levels not only takes time and money, but also would require specialist knowledge and government and or CAA approval for the firing to take place.

Its not impossible that it was a flare fired from a military aircraft, but any military presence would have been known about.

A more likely theory, according to my friend and as has already been advanced, is that it was a powerful laser, whose effects become more distorted in the atmosphere the higher the laser goes.
The fact that not only yourself, but several other aircrew saw the same thing within a specific area rather than at different locations, backs up the laser distortion theory.

Time to contact Sec (AS) 2a ;)

No one would have believed .... cue spooky music.

Saw a similar thing myself here very late at night while driving home so I know how much of an impact these things can have. I'm sure there's a perfectly normal explanation.

Hi all,

At that time thursday night we were flying westbound, north west of paris towards London.
At 2156 exactly our cockpit lit up green and when I looked out on my right sight I saw a big green ball shooting through the sky.
I'm pretty sure it was some space debry because it looked like a shooting star but than bl....y close.
The weird thing was that other aircraft reproed it as something going up but we saw it as smething going down.
I'm very interested what it was as I was very impressed.
Hope to hear more.

Lorel

We saw what I assume to be the same object on 20th May at approx 2155Z. It was to the east our position (in the climb, almost overhead LHR), very rapidly descending, burning a very green colour - we presumed it to be space junk re-entering. It was just one of the brightest objects that either of us had ever seen.

Quote

"At that time thursday night we were flying westbound, north west of paris towards London.
At 2156 exactly our cockpit lit up green and when I looked out on my right sight I saw a big green ball shooting through the sky.
I'm pretty sure it was some space debry because it looked like a shooting star but than bl....y close.
The weird thing was that other aircraft reproed it as something going up but we saw it as smething going down.
I'm very interested what it was as I was very impressed.
Hope to hear more."

We saw exactly the same thing coming up abeam paris, something going down not up though. Looked like space debris burning up on re-entry, very impressive!!..got my attention!

I recall years ago a crew reporting that something similar had passed "very close to them" ...nothing on radar BUT similar reports from places as far south as Wales(I am in Northern Ireland)...space debris and a serious case of foreshortening at night?

Thanks for your reports. I think it's safe to say the green flash was indeed space debris. However as I said it did appear to us to come from the ground, and we were not the only ones. Perhaps it was down to perspective because we were closer. Either that or I'm starting to lose the plot with continual night flights!

Ten Dollar

Anybody heard of iridium flares? Have a look at the following website: heavens-above

Using it, I've seen some spectacular sights!!

When and where did Mike Yardley the shooting journalist, do the test firing of "who shot the Red Baron" with a green laser?

In his attempts to hit the light aircraft, the hugely powerful beam was weaving round the skies for some time.

Could it have been the green beam of light that is projected from somewhere in London. I see it all the time from the ground, but haven't seen it from the air yet.
I think it's something to do with Greenwich.

'Twas a cold foggy night, the wind was howling outside at about 450 kts i was in the dark erie gloom of my office, east bound out of glasgow passing thru the franfurt controller triangle, suddenly there was a blue flash of light and a voice was heard in both ears......a click ......the door opened slowly (against dtr recommendations)...there stood a creature like i've never seen before...about four feet tall with an over sized head and big black eyes... it seemed to be wearing an ill fitting shroud .. My heart was in my mouth , there was no escape , was this the abduction i had been having night mares about?.Then it spoke...a loud shrieking wail like a wounded banshee...DEEEEEEEEEEEEEE YEEEEEEEEEE WAAAAAAAAANT aaaaaaa DDRIIIIIIIIIIIINK, AAAAANDDDD WHEEEEENNN DEEEEEEE YEEEEEEE WAAAAANT TAE EEEEEEEEEAT.

You just cant get the staff.

I was flying too on Thursday night at a similar time. However I was in the Bilbao/Pamplona area in northern Spain. We saw exactly the same thing, but we took it to be a shooting star or space debris. It lasted a long time and overtook us and shot off northwards over the horizon.

The TV program with the laser was shot in Belgium (at the actual location that the Red Baron was shot down).

It would also have been shot some weeks/months before it was shown to allow for editing etc. so wouldn't have been the lights from last Thursday.

er..... I have't seen Kermit since last week....

Back into MAN last night 2320 local, over the Pennines, ROSUN arrival converted to centrefix for 24R, we both clearly saw a GREEN light, like a searchlight coming from a point apparently southeast of the field. Maybe Shawbury / Jodrell Bank ? Why ? How ?

Very bright, at least 50 miles away. Only one other inbound at the time so if it happens again I'll ask ATC.

Unless anyone else has the answer.

Cheers