For the second time in two months, the United States Navy’s “doomsday plane” was seen in the skies over California. Now, with the military conflict taking place in Iran, the question people are asking is, what was it doing?
Often referred to as the “Pentagon of the Sky,” the U.S. Navy’s Boeing E-6B Mercury aircraft is known as a “doomsday plane” for its role as an airborne command post and communications relay center during a nuclear war. The government designed it to serve as the President’s emergency operations hub. Therefore, officials associate it with the world becoming engaged in a full-scale nuclear war.
So, when observers recently saw it flying over Fresno, California, just a couple of months after spotters also saw it at the Los Angeles International Airport, it drew many observers and much speculation.
According to the New York Post, who spoke to “airport bosses,” the Navy’s “doomsday plane” was conducting approaches at the site and spent two hours doing mock landings.
The Navy’s ‘doomsday planes’ are nuclear command platforms
The Boeing E-6B Mercury, one of just 16 specially developed “doomsday planes,” is used by the President, the Secretary of Defense, and U.S. Strategic Command as a nuclear command platform and strategic operations post. The plane, according to the Navy, “provides survivable, reliable and endurable airborne Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications.” The plane can withstand large electromagnetic pulses because it uses analog technology rather than digital systems.
“They can control the bombers, if the bombers are on alert, they can control the missiles, because the missiles are always on alert, and obviously they can control our ballistic missile submarines,” Major General Garrison told Fox 26 News. “It’s all combined into one.”
This is at least the third time a US ‘doomsday plane’ has made news since December
In December, one of the United States Navy’s Boeing E-6B Mercury “doomsday planes” mysteriously vanished from radar systems over the Atlantic Ocean.
That particular aircraft, operating with the callsign AFD FE2, departed Naval Air Station Patuxent River in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. At first, it appeared to follow a routine southeast path over the Chesapeake Bay and passed the Norfolk naval complex. However, about 60 miles east of the Virginia Capes, the plane’s public transponder went dark.
One of these planes shutting off its transponder is actually standard operating procedure for classified missions. So, that sort of occurrence was not unusual. What was slightly unusual was that it took off on its secret mission one day after Thanksgiving, a time when U.S. military operations are typically more scaled back.
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US Navy ‘Doomsday Plane’ Spotted Over California For Second Time In Two Months
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