Pilots Landing at LAX Report Seeing ‘Guy in Jetpack’ Flying Near Aircraft

An American Air Lines plane sits on the tarmac at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images
Katherine Rodriguez

An American Airlines pilot reported seeing a mystery person flying on a jetpack near aircraft on the runway at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) Sunday evening.

The pilot reported via radio to the control tower “seeing a guy in a jetpack” as he was descending upon LAX at 3,000 feet and ten miles away from the airport for a landing, KTTV reported.

“Tower, American 1997, we just passed a guy in a jetpack,” the American Airlines pilot radioed into the flight control tower, according to KTTV.

“American 1997, okay, were they off to your left side or right side?” the air traffic controller asked.

“Off the left side, maybe 300 yards or so, about our altitude,” the pilot said,

A second pilot also saw the flying object as it passed.

“We just saw the guy passing by us in the jetpack,” a Skywest pilot confirmed.

No one has fessed up to say why they were flying a jetpack at that high of an altitude, as flying that dangerously high in the sky is not typical even for a publicity stunt.

There are some jetpacks that are capable of flying that high, such as Yves “Jetman” Rossi’s winged jetpack, but those flights have always taken place in controlled airspace and require a helicopter to jump from, The Drive reported.

This is not the first time a plane has come close to colliding with a flying object.

A few weeks ago, a few reporters who were traveling on Air Force One noticed the plane nearly missed a drone flying in the air.

“Multiple people on AF1 saw what appeared to be a drone just below the plane as we were descending toward Joint Base Andrews,” Jennifer Jacobs, senior White House reporter for Bloomberg News, tweeted. “We came very close to hitting it, per @SebastianAFP, who had a window seat.”

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