Edhat Reader
Did anyone else see or hear that airplane flying low over Santa Barbara a few minutes ago? [2:45 p.m. Thursday]
It rattled the windows in our office so we jumped up to see what it was. We’re off Mission and State Street. Looked like a larger private jet and it was flying low, not the usual or allowed flight path.
A coworker looked at FlightRadar24.com and it shows the flight path right over the whole city. Is this flight path allowed? [See the screenshot]
FlightRadar doesn’t have the tail number but identified the plane as a Bombardier Global Express, a 99-foot long-range business jet.
I heard it/felt it too off San Pascual. Rarely do I see a plane this size flying that low. It’s usually helicopters going to Cottage.
How can this be allowed?
Don’t most planes fly along the coast and cut over around Mesa?
There are places to complain, search santa barbara airport flight path complaint.
I hope this was reported to the airport.
The planes are not required to follow the noise abatement route, it is a recommended not a requirement. Did flight aware say the height? As long as they were 1000 feet, no rules were violated. This would be a report to the faa not the airport. The airport does have the form though. Small jets really don’t have to follow the recommendation so since nothing was illegal maybe save the complaint? Unless you can prove they were under 1000 feet over the city…
This:
“Best to call the airport noise hotline if concerned and they can track the flight crew and discuss it with them.”
is the point I was making by giving those concerned information about making a complaint to the airport’s noise abatement liine.
Also if there were no tail numbers published publicly then it may not be a commercial or private jet… aliens:) j/k you know we know that they know we know they have secret jets:)
If the flight crew hadn’t been here before and didn’t check the local advisories about preferred routes then they might have thought that was OK. Even still, there is a minimum altitude allowed by the regulations over populated areas. Best to call the airport noise hotline if concerned and they can track the flight crew and discuss it with them.
How long was it flying over downtown? Was this a few seconds of passing noise or was it circling around causing disruption?
Look at the map, it shows, and no it was not supersonic, so more than a few seconds.
Yup, just a pretty standard flight path IMO. I doubt they weren’t cleared for it as many are speculating.
Many reasons an aircraft may fly low. Conflicting flight paths, government air activity.
Pretty normal stuff.
Tagdes – I saw. I was making a point.
This plane, or one very much like it, has been taking that route on a regular basis for the past week or more. I see it when walking around 9 a.m. From my angle I can’t tell what the height is but it is notably low, the altitude and route is sort of like when the military helicopters fly in once in awhile to have lunch in Goleta.
It’s too bad that they waited till landing to locate the flight; while it’s in the air at pretty much any point the airspeed as well as altitude will be displayed on the left side of FlightRadar24.com once it’s selected.
There is no point to complain to the airport about noise or flight paths. There is nothing they can do about how someone flys and they don’t care about the noise complaints. I worked there for a few years and had to sit in meetings about noise. It is literally laughed at when people make noise complaints.