A near miss?
At 16:45 hours, I was sitting by the pool at the Autumn Park Apartments in Charlotte, NC, watching a De Havilland Dash 8 banking on a final approach to the Charlotte Douglas Airport, I observed a chevron shaped craft that looked at my vantage point to almost collide with the Dash 8. It seemed to come out of nowhere. It flew into my field of vision so quickly that it took me a second to focus on it. At first I thought the black chevron was a turkey vulture, but soon realized that it was flying too fast and dead straight, SW to NE. We were facing NE. My wife has a compass on her key chain. The object was flying with a purpose. It made no noise. It took my wife awhile to see the object and by that time it was a black dot in the sky, heading in to the horizon. She thought it had to be a military or business jet because of the speed and the manner it was flying, but what I saw was too small and not shaped like any aircraft I know of and I can identify any type plane flying. The Dash 8 was about an inch long in the sky with my hand outstretched and my fingers apart. The object was about 1/8 to a ¼ inch. It never deviated from its flight path and it seemed to me that it passed very close to the Dash 8. The sky was partly cloudy with two different cloud decks. The object and the airliner were both below the lowest cloud deck. I do not know the altitude the planes fly at that point from the airport. The distance is 12.5 miles due SW. The turbo props fly at a lower altitude than the jets.
At 16:45 hours, I was sitting by the pool at the Autumn Park Apartments in Charlotte, NC, watching a De Havilland Dash 8 banking on a final approach to the Charlotte Douglas Airport, I observed a chevron shaped craft that looked at my vantage point to almost collide with the Dash 8. It seemed to come out of nowhere. It flew into my field of vision so quickly that it took me a second to focus on it. At first I thought the black chevron was a turkey vulture, but soon realized that it was flying too fast and dead straight, SW to NE. We were facing NE. My wife has a compass on her key chain. The object was flying with a purpose. It made no noise. It took my wife awhile to see the object and by that time it was a black dot in the sky, heading in to the horizon. She thought it had to be a military or business jet because of the speed and the manner it was flying, but what I saw was too small and not shaped like any aircraft I know of and I can identify any type plane flying. The Dash 8 was about an inch long in the sky with my hand outstretched and my fingers apart. The object was about 1/8 to a ¼ inch. It never deviated from its flight path and it seemed to me that it passed very close to the Dash 8. The sky was partly cloudy with two different cloud decks. The object and the airliner were both below the lowest cloud deck. I do not know the altitude the planes fly at that point from the airport. The distance is 12.5 miles due SW. The turbo props fly at a lower altitude than the jets.
No
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
Off
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
Charlotte
USA
10-15 seconds
10-15 seconds
35.20
-80.83
chevron
NC
Occurred : 7/4/2004 16:45 (Entered as : 07/04/2004 16:45) Reported: 8/30/2004 10:49:27 AM 10:49 Posted: 9/1/2004 Location: Charlotte, NC Shape: Chevron Duration: 10-15 seconds Characteristics: There were aircraft in the vicinity or aircraft chasing the object
A near miss?