Military Pilot Radioed Something Insane Over LAX and Nobody Found Who Did It

A military Gulfstream on final approach to Los Angeles International Airport just buzzed past a man flying in a wingsuit at 4,000 feet.

LAX air traffic control couldn't believe what they were hearing – and scrambled everything they had.

What the military crew saw flying above them – and why no one has been able to explain it – will stop you cold.

The Air Traffic Recording That Has Pilots Talking

The incident unfolded at 2:33 p.m. Sunday when the pilot of Special Air Mission flight 741 – a Gulfstream C-37 inbound from Nellis Air Force Base – radioed LAX approach control with nine words controllers almost never hear.

"On approach, SAM 741 just had a potential skydiver around 4,000 feet," the pilot reported.

Controllers asked for clarification.

"We just had somebody cross above us around 4,000 feet in a wingsuit," the pilot responded.

The air traffic controller's reply said everything: "Are you serious?"

It was serious enough to immediately trigger warnings to the next aircraft in line.

American Airlines flight 2041, next in line to land at LAX, got the alert – and that crew confirmed they were already scanning.

"We're looking for him," the American pilot answered.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Air Bureau launched a helicopter to the area west of the 605 freeway and north of the 105 freeway.

They found nothing.

The FAA is now investigating.

This Isn't the First Time LAX Has Gone Searching for a Flying Man

This story sounds brand new.

It isn't.

LAX has been through this before – and the mystery never got solved.

Between August 2020 and July 2021, pilots reported at least four separate encounters with what appeared to be a person flying near LAX's approach corridors.

The first call came from an American Airlines crew on August 30, 2020 – they radioed that a "guy in a jetpack" had just passed 300 yards off their left wing at 3,000 feet.

A SkyWest crew confirmed the sighting minutes later.

Then a China Airlines captain reported seeing a flying object at 6,000 feet over Culver City in October 2020.

Then a Kalitta Air Cargo 747 crew spotted what they called "jet man" off their right wing at 5,000 feet in July 2021.

The FBI opened a formal case file and spent more than a year working alongside the FAA on every reported incident.

Zero were ever confirmed.

The official explanation that eventually emerged: the pilots might have been looking at balloons.

An LAPD helicopter even captured footage of what appeared to be a life-sized inflatable Jack Skellington – the character from The Nightmare Before Christmas – floating freely over Hollywood Hills.

That explanation satisfied exactly nobody.

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That explanation satisfied exactly nobody.

Especially in light of the deadly B-52 crash that happened Monday morning at Edwards Air Force Base — about 11:20 a.m., roughly 70 miles northeast of LAX, in the Mojave Desert.

There’s no indication the wingsuit sighting at LAX Sunday afternoon had anything to do with the catastrophic crash of the B-52 Stratofortress less than 24 hours later.

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But with eight dead, there are certainly plenty of questions that must be answered.

The Nuclear Football Carrier Said He Never Saw Anything Like It

Buzz Patterson spent 20 years as a USAF combat pilot and once carried the nuclear football for President Bill Clinton.

He saw the audio from Sunday's encounter and didn't mince words.

"An Air Force jet on final sees a guy in a wingsuit ABOVE them," Patterson said. "I've seen a lot of things in my 35 years in the air, but I've never seen this!"

That's the detail that makes this sighting different from every jetpack report in 2020 and 2021.

Those earlier sightings described objects at roughly the same altitude as incoming aircraft – or lower.

Sunday's wingsuit figure crossed above SAM741 at 4,000 feet.

Whatever it was, it was flying higher than an aircraft on final approach to one of the busiest airports in the United States.

A standard wingsuit jump from altitude doesn't work that way.

Commercial skydivers don't operate near major airport approach corridors.

And yet a military Gulfstream crew – trained aviators who flew from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland that morning – called it in without hesitation.

Six Years of Investigations and the FAA Still Has No Answer

The FAA and FBI have now been chasing this LAX mystery for six years.

Four confirmed sightings from 2020 to 2021.

A year-long FBI investigation that produced zero verified explanations.

And now a military flight crew is the latest to report something impossible flying above one of America's busiest airports.

The sheriff's helicopter found nothing.

The FAA hasn't commented.

And the air traffic controller's three-word response to that pilot's report – "Are you serious?" – is about as honest an answer as anyone has given yet.

Sources:

• Joe Kovacs, "Are You Serious? Pilot Reports Mystery Man Flying in Wingsuit on Final Approach at Los Angeles Airport," World Net Daily, June 14, 2026.
• Michael Ruiz, "FBI Investigating Latest Alleged Los Angeles Jetpack Guy Sighting," Fox News, July 30, 2021.
• John Krenek, "FBI Releases LAX Jetpack Case Files; Pilot Interview Contradicts Jetpack Description," The Black Vault, January 8, 2026.