American Airlines Flight 2292, an Airbus A320 operating between Cincinnati and Phoenix on February 21, 2021, had an unusual close encounter with what its crew described as “an elongated cylindrical shape much like a cruise missile.”
According to the pilots, the object was moving very fast over the top of the plane, climbing at 36,000 feet and 400 knots. The event took place in the rural northeast corner of New Mexico County, just west of the small town of Des Moines.
Steve Douglass, an expert radio interceptor and owner of Deep Black Horizon, told the War Zone platform that he was recording scans of his arsenal when he noticed an unusual transmission.
The War Zone analyzed over an hour of audio provided by Douglass (audio can be downloaded here). “We are working to authenticate this with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and to obtain more data and comment from the Department on the accident. We contacted American Airlines to gather additional information that they could provide,” the specialized site said yesterday.
As Douglass had said:
At approximately 1:19 CST, the pilot recorded on the Albuquerque center frequency of 127.850 MHz or 134.750 MHz (the recording was not identified with the frequency):
“Do you have a goal up there? We just wanted everything to be about us. I hate to say it, but it looked like a big cylindrical shape, more like some kind of cruise missile, which passed over us very quickly.”
According to Flight 24 and Flight Conscious, AAL 2292 was located in the northeast corner of New Mexico, west of Clayton. The Albuquerque Center did not track any responses because local air traffic (yellow) went through it. At the time of the study, AAL 2292 was close to flight level 370 (37k).
No obvious involvement of military aircraft was detected in the ADS-B record.
The plane had traveled to Phoenix, AZ.
official confirmation
Following attempts to notify law enforcement, he has verified the incident to date, authenticating the records and adding that everything is currently under consideration by the FBI.
“After consulting with our flight crew and providing further details, we can conclude that American Airlines Flight 2292 received the radio transmission on February 21. If you have any further concerns, please contact the FBI,” the American Airlines spokesperson said.
