Low planes: Houston, we don't have a problem (747 flies near Houston skyscrapers)

Houston Chronicle ^ | 12.10.2003 | MARK CARREAU

[SolidSupplySide]

pair of NASA aircraft prompted a flurry of calls to local law enforcement today as they flew low over the city at mid-day.

The NASA Boeing 747 jumbo jet, normally used to ferry the space shuttle from California to Florida, and the smaller T-38, a training jet flown by astronauts, were involved in a Federal Aviation Administration exercise.

However, some who witnessed the two aircraft fly over downtown Houston and the Galleria at altitudes of 2,000 feet became concerned of a possible terrorist threat and called authorities, said NASA spokesman James Hartsfield.

"The purpose of the exercise is to improve the safety of commercial airliners, and our aircraft were serving as a test bed," said Hartsfield.

The nation has been on alert for low-flying aircraft over metropolitan areas since the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. on Sept. 11, 2001.

The Boeing 747 and the T-38, whose pilots were filming the jumbo jet as they followed, were under the supervision of federal air traffic controllers.

The space agency said it plans to puplicly announce any future low-altitude exercises, but that none are planned.

[FreedomCalls]

We live under the approach to Rwy 31, the nighttime runway at BNA (Nashville) ... Michael

Is you last name Dell? Isn't that where the Dell complex is located?

[CARDINALRULES]

The space agency said it plans to puplicly announce any future low-altitude exercises, but that none are planned.

Nice editing/spell checking. lol

[Fester Chugabrew]

Saw a 747 on approach to O'Hare last Monday morning. I don't see this very often. A couple miles out the plane looked like it was just hanging there. HUGH! How they get those things to stay up in the air without mirrors is a mystery to me.

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Jim, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times .... now stop it!!!

[anymouse]

If it was the shuttle transport aircraft then it was a 747. I've been inside it, it's eery being in a flying cavern with all of the seats and overhead compartments pulled out to save weight. Even eerier to think about a multi-dozen ton space shuttle suspended over your head by mere millimeters of semi-monocot aircraft aluminium skin, strategically reinforced with forged titanium frames. Somewhere I have the video taken of me walking through this beast.

[Bilbo Baggins]

(ping for Dixi)

Holy crap!!!

I've vacationed on Bonaire, Netherland Antilles and their runway starts a couple of hundred feet from the beach, but OH MY GOD, that St. Maarten airport area must be insane.

Here's the Bonaire approach: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/254152/M/

I've been on both the KLM airplane and the beach when a very large airplane is landing and both were quite amazing (for the views and the diving off the beach.)

[Boiling point]

Hey Wright is right, I am a new post-er but long time lurker from the Boro! Good to see posts from mid tenn area. Anyway, until a couple years ago I flew ultralight airplanes for fun and nearly any county adjoining Davidson was dangerous
to fly above 2000agl because of BNA.

[Wright is right!]

"We live under the approach to Rwy 31, the nighttime runway at BNA (Nashville) ... Michael Is you last name Dell? Isn't that where the Dell complex is located?"

Dell has several components. Their first complex consisting of two buildings sits on property adjacent to Rwy 2/20 Center. They have an admin building and a warehouse-distribution facility that used to be an assembly plant. Their assembly plant is miles east of the airport in Lebanon TN. It had been planned to locate an additional Dell plant on airport property just east of a planned fourth N/S parallel runway. That fourth parallel and that Dell plant seem both to have been shelved. Odd, too, because Nashville Electric spent a ton of money running some heavy-duty industrial electric service to where the plant would have been. The service is still there.

As for a fourth N/S parallel, I can't see BNA needing it in the foreseeable future. 2/20 L/C/R are all three over 7700' and 150' wide in excellent condx, and the crossing rwy 13/31 can be used simultaneous with the parallels, so we have way more operation capacity than we need.

Michael

[Wright is right!]

"until a couple years ago I flew ultralight airplanes for fun and nearly any county adjoining Davidson was dangerous to fly above 2000agl because of BNA."

I'd check the sectional, but you're probably OK in that ultralight outside the Davidson Co line, although there are some other fields you have to be aware of with a lot of GA activity.

Michael

[Doctor Stochastic]

How they get those things to stay up in the air without mirrors is a mystery to me.

If you had the right clearances, you would know where the mirrors are.

[SolidSupplySide]

The same plane just flew over downtown Houston again at 10:30 am. This time if was flying at 5,000 + feet, but still awfully low for such a populated area. Plus, civil authorities did not warn the population as they promised.

[Porterville]

Houston sucks.... sorry, it really does... try San Antonio or Dallas.

[ASA Vet]

"That ain't low"

Low was a B-58 practicing a low level supersonic run over northern Michigan during deer season.

I had to leave the woods for clean long johns.

[etsuVol]

I heard a funny conspiracy theory in a chatroom by a radical leftist: She said her father has photographs that prove it was not the NASA 747 but the Russian equivalent (easy to tell them apart; Russian plane has 6 engines) and that it was a real intercept by US planes on a Russian cargo aircraft. anybody else heard that?

[Doohickey]

Low was getting buzzed by two F/A-18s while standing in bridge of an SSN I was on. You could see the pilots giving us the "thumbs-up" through the canopy.

[A Texan]

Put down the crack pipe and slowly back away from he key board. San Antonio better then Houston, you have got to be kiding.