Planes Circling Over PDX on Friday, 8th of November.

I was working on Friday near the PDX Airport and all of us began noticing the planes at all altitudes began circling the area. They were doing multiple loops. As new planes would fly into the airspace they would do the same at different altitudes. This happened at roughly 8:30 AM Pacific Time yesterday, the 8th of November. Wed could find no information about why it was happening. Last time I remember seeing anything like this was on "9-11".

Here are the photos of some of it:







Anyone have any ideas on what was going on?

Planes Circling Around Portland Due To Fog In Seattle

a reply to: nonnez

That's a textbook holding pattern, as pointed out above. They use them for multiple reasons, from spacing from other aircraft, to bad weather, and everything in between.

Thank you for the info. There were a bunch of us wondering about.

a reply to: nonnez
Hold, on left

Funny, there were about 20 of us looking for information on it on Friday. I told them that I would post on this forum I have been a member of for a while and that I would be able to tell them pretty quickly what was going on. You folks don't disappoint, thanks again, Cheers!

a reply to: nonnez

If you have questions like this feel free to post in the aviation forum. I once posted a picture of a piece of instrument panel from an unknown aircraft in there, and within 30 minutes it was identified and the crash site and report were found.