Sunday, May 14, 2023

Intercepted Cessna has nothing to do with Antarctica, either

An article from May 10, 2023 has the title Flat-Earthers Fly a Rogue Aircraft Over Antarctic and Get Intercepted.  It contains a TikTok (sorry, I couldn't get embedding it to work) showing a Cessna being turned back by fighter jets, but it didn't show where the airplane was flying.  The video is also in Ewaranon's What on Earth Happened (Original Series), part 2, Of Maps and Magicians at 20:46 - link.

The reporter who wrote the article, Cassandra Yorgey, did watch the TikTik and correctly wrote "The reason the chartered flight was surrounded was because they ignored air traffic control, not because you can’t fly over the antarctic. The same thing would happen in any airspace, not just Antarctica."

But were they flat-earthers flying to, let alone over, Antarctica?  No, they were making a TV segment (which aired on the Today Show) about what would happen if an aircraft got too close to Air Force One, the airplane carrying the US President,  on July 10, 2017.


Several comments on the TikTok included this video, and the poster then claimed he was merely demonstrating how closed airspace works. 

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