[My Dog Likes Me]

Yes, a real mystery! I emailed the entire article from the Mobile Register to the New York Post city editor, since the pilot is former NYPD. I'm sure his former colleagues in NYC still mourn his passing, and wonder "What the heck happened?" Also, this was a local "staff report," from the Mobile Register, and not a national Associated Press release.

I think I saw a TV program years back, where drug dealers get really close to large aircraft in order to mask themselves on air traffic control radar, then when they are low enough, they break off and speed to their own secret runways.

But even with that, I can't rationalize what happened here. FedEx flies out of Memphis, mostly, if not exclusively, which is NORTH of Mobile. I think the drugs come from the SOUTH.

[Smokin' Joe]

Maybe the plane was headed south on a pickup run..

[flys4grins]

Just browsing this sight....I live here in Mobile, Alabama, and was at work at Brookley field that night. I knew the pilot, Tom Preziose....he was a nice guy.....at any rate....us folks down here in Mobile are just as puzzled
as you!
There are loads of theories about what happened going around down here......missiles, Drones, drug runners, or wake turbulence...though I doubt that very seriously. I also fly, and I can't see where wake turbulence would be the cause...

[Rebelbase]

"I think I saw a TV program years back, where drug dealers get really close to large aircraft in order to mask themselves on air traffic control radar"

I may be incorrect, but I thought air traffic control was dependent on an active trasnsponder an a plane. If the transponder is turned off the plane doesn't show up on their radar.