Was my neighbour seeing things?
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Altrincham, UK
Age: 67
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Was my neighbour seeing things?
My next door neighbour, who is not an aviation enthusiast of any sort, told me this morning that he witnessed three aircraft flying 'very close together' over our houses on Sunday morning (27th September) about 9.30am.
He describes them as all leaving trails, so they must have been at high level, and he said he managed to tell that there was 'one big one and two small ones'. From what he says direction-wise, they were heading roughly west to east, and he saw them over the Altrincham area of south Manchester. He also tells me that he saw the large one 'try to get away from the smaller ones, which then immediately caught it up'.
This has me puzzled. We do get a lot of high level overflights over our houses; and contrails are commonplace; we are between the Wallasey & Manchester VORs on a very busy airway after all. But I have never seen three aircraft flying as closely together as he describes, or acting in the way he describes.
One possible explanation might be air-refuelling, but it seems a very odd place to carry out the procedure, and it is certainly not in a designated AAR zone.
Another might be an interception of some sort, but these events normally hit the press very rapidly, don't they? (And I've not seen any reports anywhere.)
And, of course, another explanation might be that my neighbour was perceiving what he saw incorrectly. Perhaps three normal upper air users at slightly different levels which just happened to 'appear' to be close together from the ground.
Did anyone else happen to spot these aircraft passing over the south Manchester area on Sunday at all? I'm mystified.
He describes them as all leaving trails, so they must have been at high level, and he said he managed to tell that there was 'one big one and two small ones'. From what he says direction-wise, they were heading roughly west to east, and he saw them over the Altrincham area of south Manchester. He also tells me that he saw the large one 'try to get away from the smaller ones, which then immediately caught it up'.
This has me puzzled. We do get a lot of high level overflights over our houses; and contrails are commonplace; we are between the Wallasey & Manchester VORs on a very busy airway after all. But I have never seen three aircraft flying as closely together as he describes, or acting in the way he describes.
One possible explanation might be air-refuelling, but it seems a very odd place to carry out the procedure, and it is certainly not in a designated AAR zone.
Another might be an interception of some sort, but these events normally hit the press very rapidly, don't they? (And I've not seen any reports anywhere.)
And, of course, another explanation might be that my neighbour was perceiving what he saw incorrectly. Perhaps three normal upper air users at slightly different levels which just happened to 'appear' to be close together from the ground.
Did anyone else happen to spot these aircraft passing over the south Manchester area on Sunday at all? I'm mystified.
A United, a Thai and a KLM were travelling very close together West to East separated by 2,000 ft at the time.
Have a look at https://planefinder.net/ - you can replay the data from the 27th at 08:30 UTC
Have a look at https://planefinder.net/ - you can replay the data from the 27th at 08:30 UTC
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Altrincham, UK
Age: 67
Posts: 4
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Yeah thanks, I thought as much... He was very insistent about it though.
The link didn't work for me for some reason. I get to the site but I just get a mainly blank white screen with tool buttons along the side which do nothing if I click on them. I'm probably not clicking on the correct ones or something.
No matter. Problem solved as far as I'm concerned.
The link didn't work for me for some reason. I get to the site but I just get a mainly blank white screen with tool buttons along the side which do nothing if I click on them. I'm probably not clicking on the correct ones or something.
No matter. Problem solved as far as I'm concerned.
