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Airline pilots reported seeing ‘a guy in a jetpack’ flying 3,000 feet over Los Angeles

By Dona Madani and Andrew Blakstein, NBC News

Two pilots on two different flights reported seeing a man in a jetpack thousands of feet in the air above Los Angeles on Sunday, prompting an investigation by authorities.

An American Airlines pilot was approaching Los Angeles International Airport at around 6:30 p.m. when he called in the sighting to air-traffic control, according to an audio log. The unidentified flying person was at the plane’s altitude, the pilot said, about 3,000 feet in the air.

“Tower, American 1997. We just passed a guy in a jetpack,” the pilot said.

“Only in LA,” an unidentified person said in the audio log.

Another pilot, on a Southwest Airlines flight according to NBC Los Angeles, also reported seeing the individual in a jetpack and the air-traffic controllers radioed to another airline crew to warn them. The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the sighting to NBC News in a statement Tuesday.

“Two airline flight crews reported seeing what appeared to be someone in a jet pack as they were on their final approaches to LAX around 6:35 p.m. PDT Sunday,” the statement said. “The FAA alerted local law enforcement to the reports, and is looking into these reports.

The FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office also confirmed it was aware of the sighting. A spokeswoman for the office said the FBI was working to determine what happened