Near Collision with an Airplane

Late in 2008, I received a phone call from a man in England: a plane pilot who had a surprising near collision with a flying creature whose appearance suggested a pterosaur.

In June of 2008, two very experienced pilots were at the controls of a light twin-engined plane, flying over the sea southeast of Bali, Indonesia. While the copilot was looking at a chart, the pilot noticed what he assumed was another plane, heading in the opposite direction, threatening a direct collision. The pilot put the plane into a dive, but the other “flyer” also dove, forcing the pilot to veer away, with a bank to the left. This startled the copilot (who was on the right side), who caught a glimpse of the flying creature as it passed by the right window. Both men were sure, at that time, that it was a creature and not another plane that had nearly hit them, for in passing them it made one slow flap of its wings.

The pilot called it “dark-coloured,” and the copilot called it “quite grey,” making it unlikely to have been an Australian Pelican, which is mostly white. In addition, that pelican has very distinctive contrasts between the white and black, making it almost impossible to mistake for a grey flying creature. Although the Australian Pelican is common in this part of the world, what startled these two men was something uncommon.

Both pilot and copilot noticed something suggesting an elbow on the flying creature’s wing. It may seem that this would correspond with the wing of a pelican, but its barely perceptable when compared with the bend on the wing of a Frigate Bird. Nevertheless, the Frigate bird is eliminated by the clear statement of the copilot: “It had low aspect ratio wings (unlike the traditional maritime soarer).” The soaring Frigate bird has a high aspect ratio for the wings, as do the albatrosses. The pelican, however has a rather moderate wing aspect ratio, not low.

Perhaps most telling against the idea of a pelican misidentification is the pilot’s description of the flight of the creature just before the plane banked to the left: “At that moment, its wings took one enormous, slow, articulated flap.” Those who have carefully observed the flights of pelicans should know that this large bird has two main flight modes: steady wings (soaring or gliding) and many wing beats of moderate quickness. When they dive into the water, pelicans fold up their wings, something nobody could reasonably mistake for a flap; when they land, pelicans might flap only once, just before landing. But the flying creature that nearly collided with the airplane off the coast of Indonesia was 6500 feet high: neither diving into water nor landing.

Giant Pterosaur Between Australia and Indonesia

They were mostly done with flying from Australia to Indonesia, being at 6500 feet altitude and over the sea, when the pilot saw something coming straight at him, on a collision course. He thought it must have been another plane, somehow at the wrong altitude for that heading. He put his plane into a dive . . . The approaching flyer also dived, so the pilot banked to the left, saving them all from disaster.

Both men said the same word at the same time: “pterodactyl.”

Giant Pterosaur in Queensland, Australia

We heard it coming . . . the swoosh noise. . . . we saw was a black shape coming from the trees; the next thing we saw was one wing over the windscreen [windshield].  It crossed [in front of the car]. I couldn’t see the road for a moment, just wing covering the entire windscreen. The body was over the car and its other wing [was] over the back [of the car]. We could not see the body . . . [only]  the wing. [The wing was] bat like leather [with] veins and leather stretched over a bone structure.