I can't speak for the whole of DOD but there is serious consideration that goes into training flights, with respect to not violating any local laws and especially not fucking with local agencies. It would be unfathomable for this kind of thing to happen in a military training or testing exercise without a serious cascade of errors. Also, I would have to imagine that any supervisor involved would have immediately contacted the civilian agency involved to say "it's us, please back off."
I think it’s worth looking into a possible involvement of naval pilots, as sometimes even the best of the best write cheques their body can’t cash or buzz the tower without clearance.
Surely when the Camp Pendleton Ospreys fly within a literal stones throw of my house or just above the beach on their training routes they are violating every reasonable airspace law there is. LAPD police helicopters don't even fly as low as some of these osprey or other obnoxiously loud military helicopter over LA.
Or they thought they had a stealthy little bird the locals wouldn't ever see, and got busted.
Being full of human beings out military is fallible.
>Also, I would have to imagine that any supervisor involved would have immediately contacted the civilian agency involved to say "it's us, please back off."
I would imagine them doing no such thing. Most of the nuclear program wasn't disclosed to anyone until Kodak discovered it on their own.
Our military has a host of secrets and everyone in it does their sincere best to keep them, particularly when ordered to.
>would have immediately contacted the civilian agency involved to say "it's us, please back off."
If the civilian agencies - or any entity really - doesn't have "need to know", they won't be told a thing. Based on this thing escaping, they don't need to know anything at all.
Do you have hard evidence that the "fallible military" would deliberately confuse and frighten a civilian pilot, or that such incidents are common enough to make this a plausible explanation?