Jetpack Man spotted again at LAX.
For a second time in six weeks, a person was spotted soaring high above Los Angeles International Airport using a jetpack, however police have been unable to apprehend the suspect.
On Wednesday, China Airlines crew members reported the sighting 7 miles northwest of the airport.
As the plane began its descent, the pilot radioed the tower: “We just saw a bright object at 6,000…We saw a flying object…flight suit jet pack at 6,000.”
The air traffic controller asked: “Was it a UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] or was it a jet pack?”
The China Airlines pilot said the object was too far away, but said it looked “like a jet pack.”
Air traffic controllers took no chances and immediately scrambled to warn commercial airliners descending into the airport of the potential threat.
In a statement, the FBI said it “is in contact with the FAA and investigating multiple reports of what, according to witnesses, appeared to be an individual in a jetpack near LAX, including one today by a China Airlines pilot.”
In regards to the sighting six weeks earlier, the FBI admitted it has no leads.
In that incident, a pilot for American Airlines flight AA1997 spotted what he believed to be “a guy in a jetpack” just 300 yards to the left of his plane.
The CEO of a local jetpack manufacturing company doesn’t think the sightings are of a jetpack, saying none of his or his competitors’ products are sold to consumers.
Additionally, the altitude reported seems highly unlikely as although jetpacks are technically capable of soaring to heights of 15,000 feet, due to fuel constraints, they can actually reach only about 1,500 feet off the ground safely.
Instead, he suggests a more likely scenario – somebody playing a prank by attaching a mannequin to a drone.
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