Has Jetpack Man risen again near Los Angeles? Five years after the original prank involving what was thought to be a drone carrying a lightweight mannequin, a Gulfstream pilot reported a “potential skydiver” buzzed the bizjet while it was on final for LAX at about 4,000 feet. “We just had somebody cross above us around 4,000 feet in a wingsuit,” the pilot told ATC. Other aircraft in the vicinity were warned of the possible conflict but they didn’t see anything. Here’s the animation from Aviation Circle.
From 2020 to 2022 there were numerous sightings of an object resembling a person in sustained flight around Los Angeles. The sitings disrupted air traffic and despite their best efforts authorities were never able to track it, and its presumably remote pilot, down. The wingsuit description in this report is a major difference and there have been no reports of sightings since the Sunday incident.
A correction regarding technical terms: A wing suit is jumpsuit a skydiver wears over their body with “wings” between the extended wrists and ankles and a fillet between the full length of the legs that are inflated with ram air. These form a partial airfoil that might generate a little lift, but wing suits primarily deflect airflow to introduce a significant increase in horizontal translation during free fall.
What is depicted in the photo is not a wing suit. It is a rigid airfoil device, possibly with some mechanical means of thrust, that a jumper attaches to themselves. By the way, devices like this that have been used legitimately were made with composites and powered by very small jet engines. They are not capable of self launching and the users exited from a jump airplane.