On Friday, the 9th of November 2018 at around 6:47 AM local time, a British Airways pilot contacted Shannon air traffic control in Ireland. The female British Airways pilot whose call sign was Speedbird64 was flying from the Canadian city of Montreal to London Heathrow and made the call while passing over Kerry on the southwest coast of Ireland. She wanted to know if there were any military exercises going on.
The air traffic controller confirmed there were no such exercises. The pilot went on to explain that there was a very bright light and an object had come up along the left side of her aircraft before rapidly veering to the north. She was wondering what it could be but noted that was not on a collision course. Another controller suggested it might be a meteor.
The pilot stated there appeared to be multiple bright objects following the same sort of trajectory. Then a pilot with the callsign Virgin76 who was flying Virgin Airlines plane from Orlando to Manchester in the same airspace confirmed that he had also witnessed the object. He said it was in his 11 o’clock position with two bright lights over to the right that then climbed away at great speed.
Shannon ATC informed Speedbird94 that another aircraft had reported the same thing. Then a third pilot from another British Airways flight responded, saying that the speed of the object was “astronomical”, going at least Mach 2, which is 2,500 kilometers per hour or about four times as fast as a commercial airliner.
The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) has filed a report, which will be investigated under the standard “confidential occurrence” investigation process. While the event has been reported in the legacy media, a spokesperson for Shannon Airport said it would not be appropriate for the airport to comment while the IAA investigation is ongoing.
