Plane crash mystery in Reading, England

Just over a week ago our Facebook went crazy in Reading with rumours of a passenger jet crashing in Reading. Loads of people in the town heard a deafening sound and a plane flying very very low over houses.

The local media are reporting that authorities are denying all knowledge of it and now people are shouting cover up.

Can anyone shed any light on why an aircraft would be flying so low over a residential area?

Link

www.getreading.co.uk...

Hundreds of people heard a “deafening” noise over Tilehurst, Calcot and areas of West Berkshire and some say they saw what could have been a passenger jet flying over town at around 8.30pm last Thursday, sparking rumours of a plane crash in Sulham Woods.

www.getreading.co.uk...

Interesting, so 30 people reported it, yet nothing was there.

But the police say they have no record of any incident and nor does the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which also says it should have been notified if anything caused an aircraft of any sort to have difficulties or fly lower then 1,000 feet above a settlement.

Lets hope some more evidence turns up.

reply to post by Cyprex


I heard the noise it was ridiculously loud but couldn't see the plane from my apartment. It was very strange though and didn't take long for people to start reporting things.

I know it was only Facebook but it only took minutes for friends to get on there and report what they saw as it completely uncommon to see a plane so low in the area.

A mystery for sure.

Given the conflicting details in the accounts (was it a light aircraft? a helicopter? a passenger jet?) and given also that although dark there were no reports of any crash, explosion or fire, I'm guessing that an aircraft did fly fairly low over the area, but that it was not a commercial airliner and it certainly didn't crash!

Edit: I think the correct story headline ought have been 'low flying aircraft mystery'

Interesting though that the local newspaper is relying on Facebook banter for news stories. I'd have thought comment at the end about 2 reported terrorist attacks on airliners by braindead-zombies-who-have-never-had-a-girlfriend, using lasers, is a far more serious story given that they can cause an airliner to crash! Frightning that so many attacks occur .....

Any closed circut security camaras running at the time of the incident? Maybe at a petrol station or a department store?

Originally posted by fockewulf190
Any closed circut security camaras running at the time of the incident? Maybe at a petrol station or a department store?

The only place that might have caught something is Sainburys Supermarket & Petrol station on the Bath Road Reading.

Not alot of other CCTV around. Although it is a residential area, its to the west of the town and not over central Reading where most of the CCTV is.

Aye, I was going to post the same story. I'm in Oxfordshire and I heard it. In fact, I was writing a post on these boards at the time:

Personal opinion? It's interesting. The Fort Worth UFO, after its cameo at the Yankee stadium seems to have arrived here. And whilst typing this I just heard the strangest souding plane ever! But that's un-related.

I went to the window but couldn't see it either, due to the direction it was flying and the way my building faces, but I'm pretty sure it was going this way:



Like many others, I fully expected to hear an explosion/crash. It was a horrible sound, like the fanbelt on your car being broken x 20 - only on a 737.

I was surprised to see the newspaper article on the front page of Getreading at my local shop - my instant thought was - hey, they've called this a 'conspiracy' and I was writing on a conspiracy site at the time, woohoo! So I bought the paper and the shopkeeper said he was certain he saw it, and that it looked like a military plane. He was actually closer to the yellow line flight path I've drawn than I was, so I respect his opinion about it being military. The one thing I can't quite add up though is that I'm sure there was still sunlight - I thought this happened at about 4pm in the afternoon, but I suppose the Calcot accounts and my ATS post when I heard it prove otherwise.

If it was in trouble, then why did it not land at our local RAF base? Anyway it would be good to find out why it was making so much noise, probably never will - but certainly it's not a sound anyone wants to hear coming from an aeroplane, especially a 737 sized one.

Still, good to see the speculation hit local newspapers. It is odd that there is no explanation for it, or we are being withheld info about it - I suppose if it's military this is fairly typical, though I'm not sure WHY they would be avoiding all the military bases and continuing flying if there was a fault as bad as it sounds. I wonder where it ended up.

I had a C-17 Globemaster fly very low over my house Thursday night. I had to grab my night vision monocle to see what it was. Only the red navigation lights were on. I bet it scared anyone that is not up to date on military hardware.