UPDATE: Low Flying C-17 Was Performing Memorial Flyover
Credit: Submitted
A large military transport plane flew low over the Levittown area several times Wednesday afternoon.
Around 1:30 p.m., a C-17 transport plane flew several circles over Bristol Borough, Bristol Township, and Middletown Township. The 174-foot-long plane was about 1,000 feet off the ground and its engines produced enough noise to shake homes, according to local residents and flight tracking data.
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The large transport plane took off from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst only minutes before its Lower Bucks County tour. The plane then departed over Langhorne Borough at 1,300 feet and flew around Trenton and performed numerous laps in the air before landing again at the base.
While it’s not uncommon for military transport and air-to-air refuelers to head toward the base over Lower Bucks County, the C-17’s low altitude and circles in the sky were uncommon.
Questions and comments about the low flight quickly flooded local social media pages and led to inquiries to this news organization.
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The plane that caused the hubbub is based out of Charleston, South Carolina.
Two service members at the joint base’s public affairs office said they did not have further details on the flight. One service member told a reporter they had inquired with the flight operations team, but further information was not released as of 7 p.m.
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The C-17 has been in military service since the mid-1990s and is known as a versatile large transport jet that travels the globe with the American military and several close allies, including the Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force.
In 2017, a refueling plane and fighter jets from the Royal Saudi Air Force caused a stir when they passed over Levittown. They were traveling from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada to their home base in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
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