Chile.Antofagasta · the three lights filmed by the FACh922 crew

The report reached SEFAA, the section of Chile's Directorate General of Civil Aviation that studies anomalous aerial phenomena, on 24 November 2023. It said that on a flight the day before, over the Antofagasta Region, three white lights had been seen, with no size given, for more than a minute and always to the south. According to the report, there were more than three witnesses, all crew members of FACh922, a flight whose call sign, FACH, is that of the Chilean Air Force, flying from Iquique (SCDA) to Santiago (SCEL) at 35,000 feet; when the sighting began, according to the report, they were 'Vertical SCFA, heading 190', that is, over Antofagasta airport and heading south, slightly west. The testimony read: 'During the flight, three lights are seen that switch on and off intermittently (like a star). However, at one point they begin to move'.

The report arrived without images, but the crew later handed over the footage, and the office analysed each of its 1,110 frames. Frame 428, reproduced in the report, shows two of the luminous objects. According to the metadata, the file had kept its digital integrity and was recorded at about 00:21 local time on 23 November (03:21 UTC) with the main camera of an iPhone 11. The aircraft did not appear in the public records of transponder traffic, so SEFAA asked for help from the adviser of the Standards and Development Office of the Department of Aerodromes and Aeronautical Services (DASA). According to the adviser, the radar record placed the flight over Andrés Sabella airport, Antofagasta, at 03:07:54 UTC, thirteen minutes earlier than the report indicated. The radar figure the report uses to illustrate this shows two tracks over the airport labelled 'SOBERBI 371 370' and 'AVISPA 79 A025', neither with the call sign FACH922, and the report does not say which of them is the flight. It adds that when filming began, at 03:21 UTC, the aircraft was roughly next to the ISEKA control point, south of the city, some 40 kilometres from the airport; it does not explain how an aircraft at cruise covered so little distance in thirteen minutes (the distance and the objection are this record's). With that the office fixed its position at 23° 47′ 51″ S and 70° 22′ 34″ W, 11,278 metres above sea level, heading 190°.

The reconstruction of the sky put the Sun at azimuth 201° 15′, ahead of the crew, some 43° below the horizon, 'which allowed there to be light that could be fleetingly reflected by space objects orbiting near the horizon'. Seconds before filming began, according to the text of the report, the space traffic in that sector included 'the weather satellite Fengyun 1C' and Starlinks 30109, 3096 and 2102. The figure that identifies them a few seconds later labels the first 'FENGYUN 1C DEB (37047)', a catalogued fragment, and the others as Starlink-30109, Starlink-2102 and Starlink-3696 (51965): the 3096 in the text is a typo, since the figure labels 3696. According to the report, all four were on the horizon described, in orbits on different planes, and made movements similar to what the crew saw and to what was captured on video. The conclusion, dated 15 December 2023, states that 'it was concluded that what was reported was the overflight of three satellites of the Starlink project and the remains of the Fengyun 1C satellite', and classifies the case as 'Probably Explained'. The header says 'Resolved', a label SEFAA also puts on cases it closes as a 'Report' (Relato), such as the Calama case of that same month (↗).

What sets this case apart from the other crew reports that month in northern Chile is the video. In the same northern Chilean corridor and in the same weeks, SEFAA studied several sightings of lights by pilots, and where there was only testimony it could say that satellites were in the sector, but not which was which: that is how the lights seen by three crews east of Paposo on 6 November (↗) and the light an Argentine Learjet pilot saw passing Calama on 8 November (↗) ended up, both closed as a 'Report' (Relato). Here, by contrast, there was a recording with a verified time and camera and a radar record placing the aircraft, so the office could compare what was filmed with specific satellites and propose which they were, though without saying which light corresponded to each; that is why it left the case as 'Probably Explained'.

The report leaves loose ends. The testimony speaks of three lights and the conclusion of four objects, three satellites and the remains of another, without saying which one corresponds to each light or whether one was not seen; the frame it reproduces shows two. It does not analyse separately the moment when the lights 'begin to move', beyond stating that the satellites' movements were similar to what was filmed. The text calls Fengyun 1C a 'weather satellite', while its own figure labels it as a fragment, number 37047, and the conclusion speaks of its 'remains'; Jonathan McDowell's GCAT satellite catalogue completes the picture: it lists the satellite as destroyed on 11 January 2007, the date of the Chinese anti-satellite test. The text numbers as 3096 a Starlink the figure labels 3696. The space-traffic figure carries the stamp '23-12-2023 03:20:55Z', a month after the event, although the figure's caption and the Sun position the report gives correspond to 23 November. And the radar figure does not identify which of its tracks is FACh922 nor clarify the aircraft's path between the airport and the ISEKA point.

The mechanism SEFAA invokes is sunlight. With the Sun some 43° below the horizon and ahead of the crew, according to the report this 'allowed there to be light that could be fleetingly reflected by space objects orbiting near the horizon', and on that horizon it placed the four objects it proposes. That the report came from a flight with a military call sign, and that the office had to ask another department for the radar because the flight was not in the public records, did not change the method: with the video and its verified time, the office could move from the generic orbital traffic it proposed for the neighbouring reports to naming specific satellites, though without matching them one by one to the filmed lights.