Does anyone know what plane was hovering over Lindenwood and Palo Alto for about 3 hours tonight (Wednesday, 10/3/18)? It’s a Cessna C206H Stationair and it just flies in circles over and over and over again around residential neighborhoods usually around dinner time for hours on end. Happens at least a couple of times per month if not more. Way more annoying than SFO traffic or even Surf Air.

This aircraft is operated by a law enforcement agency and its activities are cloaked in secrecy.

Haha that’s odd. How secret could it be? All they do is hover over homes and neighborhoods for hours (it’s been at least 3 hours and counting now - the plane is still there, droning endlessly in circles) at 3,500 feet. I can’t imagine it’s for anything except traffic but a lot of the time they aren’t even flying over the highway. What a nuisance.

They are doing drug surveillance and at 3500 ft they can see a large area and with very high resolution imaging.

Interesting. Peter how do you know these things?!

"Peter how do you know these things?!"

I spent 18 years on the Joint Community Relations Committee for the Palo Alto Airport (including 10 years as the Chair of the JCRC) and I personally investigated every noise complaint that was filed. It took me a long time to sort of what this plane was doing but eventually I was able to piece together the facts.

So I take it that they’ve been doing this for a long time even with the noise complaints? Do you know how frequently they’ll spend an entire evening hovering like tonight? Is there a set schedule or is it random? It feels like every week or two!

This is done randomly as a set schedule would serve the benefit of the drug traffickers whom they are attempting to apprehend.

In my opinion the public benefit of these flights exceeds any annoyance that they create.

The drug plane is at it again tonight, after being up there buzzing and circling for four hours last night. You’d think that Atherton, Menlo Park, and Palo Alto wouldn’t exactly be a drug smuggling hotbed?! I’ve lived in Los Angeles and there weren’t these drug planes incessantly hovering. I don’t get it — it’s a low density residential area where people go to bed early.

MarkS:

if they're hovering over Atherton and Menlo Park it's likely they are surveiling a location in East Palo Alto or Belle Haven.

In my opinion the public benefit of these flights exceeds any annoyance that they create.