This is the final report readers received. Expand the yellow notes to see wording or claims changed after the independent fact-check.
N969WR, a 2018 Gulfstream G280 on a Bank of Utah trustee registration and the LADD privacy list, was cruising at FL450 across the Oklahoma/Texas panhandle when it squawked 7700 at ~2204Z and began a continuous descent, averaging around 2,300 ft/min. It reversed course and, at the 2212Z feed anchor, was passing ~FL236 still squawking 7700; by ~2216Z it was down through 15,000 ft and turning southeast toward Amarillo (KAMA). By 2224Z the crew had dropped the emergency code and the jet was descending through ~7,000 ft on approach into Amarillo - a controlled recovery. The trigger isn’t visible in ADS-B.
More than 30 aircraft were squawking 1255 (fire traffic) across the West and upper Midwest at the anchor, and the airspace map shows why: 42 active firefighting (HAZARDS) TFRs, 19 of them issued in the past 24 hours, spanning Oregon, Washington, Idaho, California, Colorado, Utah, Montana and Arizona. Large air tankers - a DC-10, an MD-87 and a BAe-146 over Oregon and Washington, CAL FIRE OV-10 Broncos and S-2 Trackers over California, S-64 Skycranes in Colorado - were all working at once, and CL-415 SuperScoopers were dropping on a fire in northern Minnesota.
TRON51, a US Air Force Gulfstream EA-37B Compass Call II electronic-attack jet (tail 19-5591), was over southern Arizona for much of the past two hours: a long high-altitude phase near FL400 out toward the Arizona/New Mexico line, and a spell of tight racetracks around 9,900 ft over the Marana/Avra Valley area northwest of its Davis-Monthan base. The EA-37B is the Gulfstream-based successor to the retiring EC-130H Compass Call jamming fleet, and only a small number are flying.
