An unannounced nighttime military training operation in Garland County Thursday night alarmed some residents due to aircraft flying at what some people said was just above the tree tops.
One couple who live near the Fairwood Subdivision on Mountain Pine Road called The Sentinel-Record early Friday and said they were jarred awake around 2 a.m. when the walls of their home began to rattle and items vibrated off the walls and shelves.
"We thought there might be an earthquake, so we ran outside, and saw several helicopters without lights that seemed to be escorting another large aircraft. They were just above the tree tops. Just about all of our neighbors saw the same thing," said the caller, who did not give his name.
George Downie, Hot Springs Memorial Field director, said the Department of Defense requested use of the field for a special military operation.
"We don't know anything about the operation; they just asked to use the field. There were some Black Hawk helicopters and some a little bigger, like a Chinook, and some C-130 airplanes. They came in and bought 4,000 gallons of fuel from us and said they wanted to use the airport," Downie said.
"Some of the bigger helicopters would rattle windows, and so forth," he said.
Downie said the operation was for nighttime training using night vision equipment, and as far as he knows, it ended around midnight.
"They started arriving at 7:15 p.m. and ended around midnight. I had to have people here and they left around midnight, unless they did something else after my guys left. They (the military) had to wrap up a lot, so one or two may have stayed around until later," he said.
Downie said the operation stayed on the approach end of Runway 31, out of the view of the public, and he didn't know which branch of the military may have been involved, but surmised that it could have been a joint operation, based on the type of aircraft used.
Commenting on The Sentinel-Record's Facebook post about the mission, Lisa Mitchell, who lives on Mountain Pine Road near the Cedar Glades intersection, said that at about 10:45 Thursday "they flew over my house so low that the house was literally vibrating and the windows were shaking. It sounded like they were landing on the roof."
Randi Lynn Deen, from the same area, said, "I saw at least three (helicopters) and they looked like they were going to land in our field they were so low. It was so loud that I got my kids up and dressed because I wasn't sure if they were going to land or not. Very scary."
"I'm so happy that they are able to have this area to practice. Thanks guys for all you do to keep us safe. You can wake me up whenever it's needed," Shirley Gibbins Shank said in her post.
Other residents said they saw the aircraft in the Hot Springs Village area and on Highway 70 west near the Lake Hamilton bridge.
"We've had a number of these secretive missions where the DoD notifies us they want to use the field, gives us the times of operation and ask us to turn the lights off on the field because they use night vision equipment," Downie said.
"They kept us in the dark, too, on this operation and even brought their own fuel trucks, which we fueled and that was as close as we got. They did their own refueling and everything," he said.
Local on 02/28/2015