Military aircraft were reported circling over Harstine Island Thursday night and early Friday morning. These aircraft were part of a routine military readiness exercise that is being conducted by Soldiers from an element of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. This training is scheduled to continue through the end of the month with increased military air traffic throughout the region.
However, weather forced changes to flight paths last night as the aircraft used to transport soldiers to their training waited for the call to pick them up. Officials call this “loitering.”
“They train the way the fight,” CIV Joseph M. Kubistek Jr. told MasonWebTV Powered by HCC. “They (aircraft) drop off paratroopers over an assault zone and they don’t loiter over the top because that would just draw fire on them. So realistically they go off to a different area.”
According to Kubistek, wind and weather were the reasons the aircraft changed its loitering location from southwest of JBLM to northwest of the base.
Residents who contacted MasonWebTV said the planes were low enough to shine lights into their house and the peak time was around 1 AM.
Radar data from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport courtesy of the Port of Seattle show these aircraft’s first appearance over Harstine Island about 11:30 PM Thursday at an altitude of 2800 feet. The last recorded appearance was at 1:07 AM Friday when the plane appeared at an altitude of 1850 feet as shown in the cropped picture above and full shot below.
