Continental jet has near miss with 'rocket'
11:09 AM CDT on Tuesday, May 27, 2008

By Jeremy Desel / 11 News

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HOUSTON -- Jet pilots aren’t used to sharing their airspace, so you can bet a rocket will get some attention.

Continental Flight 1544 was flying at 5,000 feet about 11 miles east of Bush Intercontinental Airport after takeoff Monday morning when the pilot called the tower to report an object headed toward the plane. The pilot described seeing a fast moving object with a thick smoke trail nearing his airspace.

The FAA now says it thinks that object was some kind of model rocket. Both the FAA and the Houston Area Joint Terrorism Task Force continue to investigate the incident that KHOU.com first reported early this afternoon.

Neither said conclusively what the pilot saw was indeed a model rocket, but an FAA spokesperson told 11 News that it was likely a high-powered model rocket. It is a federal crime to launch a rocket of any sort without notifying the FAA.

The plane was at about 5,000 feet at the time of the sighting and the flight continued on to Cleveland.

Sources told 11 News that the flight was met by Continental officials and FAA investigators to interview the passengers and crew.

Part of that investigation included a FBI call to John Etgen, who is an officer with one of the local model rocket clubs in the area.

When the FBI told him what had been reported, the rocket enthusiast was shocked.

"This is completely outside of all of our safety codes and all of our practices. We actually behave a lot like visual flight rules pilots. This is if we can't see clear airspace and already have permission to be in that air space we are not allowed to launch and we don't,â€