Fear of Fish

Here's an odd story that'll get your theories flowing, I didn't see this but a couple of my friends did and they filled their pants. What I'm about to tell you happened the day of the bomb scares that were all over the news, the ones that prompted airlines to ban carrying anything suspicious onto a flight e.g. Toothbrushes and other dodgy hand luggage. Anyway, it was mid-morning and she was driving home, when a large commercial airliner (she estimated a 737 or similar, and has been to many an airshow to put her knowledge into context) flew over her car roughly 200 feet off the ground with it's undercarriage down. The nearest commercial flight path from us would be 10 miles North for the Leeds/Bradford airport, which is about 30 miles away. The plane continued on towards the moor and fired up it's turbine clearing the hilltop by about 100 feet.

Strange for our area, yes. On the morning of a series of flight bomb scares, even weirder. Now after the plane had cleared the hilltop and began to ascend, 2 jet fighters flew over in pursuit. My friend rang Calendar news (our local tv new station) who said it was the first they'd heard of it and warned that they may be forced to not air the incident if a news blackout was 'requested' by the government.

The producer of Calendar news rang back a couple of times with updates on the situation and it turns out that after more research the airplane was heading in the direction of Menwith Hill and was the topic of a lot of intrigue. On a side note, there's also another airbase in that direction which could have been it's destination.

So, no surprise, the incident didn't appear on the news and we've heard nothing else about it. The question's are...was it hijacked and heading to Menwith Hill? Was it having technical difficulties and needed the nearest airbase to land at (a fighter escort would be a standard procedure in this case, I'd guess)? or maybe something entirely different?

Just to put this in context...I live in a small village, surrounded by country roads, moorland and the Yorkshire Dales National Park, so it's not something we see every day.