City officials have confirmed that a military training operation took place over Austin today.
A U.S. Navy E-6, similar to a commercial Boeing 707, flew over Austin during a touch-and-go drill, a common exercise in which a pilot lands and takes off again without stopping. The plane was from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma.
"This is very standard," said Jason Zielinski, a spokesman for Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. "We don't do it every day, and on these occasions people see a plane and wonder what it's doing above their house."
Zielinski said these are pilot training operations, requiring the pilot to make touchdown briefly on the runway, then continue flight.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the plane as an E-4. We regret the error.
