Around 20:30 local time on 24 October 1978, the commander of Aviaco flight AO203 asked Menorca’s control tower about two low-flying traffic sources he could see during approach. The tower had no matching traffic notification. Palma and Barcelona were consulted, but they too could supply no identification. After the airliner landed, a controller looked north with binoculars and described a luminous object.
The Spanish Air Force investigated, obtaining the recorded conversation and formal statements. In February 1979, the investigating officer favoured two fast jets in formation. That was also the pilot’s interpretation, but the controller described one light and expressed a different opinion. The file therefore supports Possibly Explained rather than an established identification of particular aircraft or a claim that both witnesses independently described exactly the same objects.
The approach report
The transcript begins with a practical air-traffic question. The Aviaco crew wanted to know whether there was reportable traffic near the airport. When told that none was notified, the pilot said he had two traffic sources to his left, not very high. The tower relayed the question to Palma and asked for more detail.
In that exchange, the pilot described low objects north of the island, moving at a speed comparable to his aircraft. A later part of the conversation places their direction roughly parallel to the approach to runway 01, with their height estimated below 1,000 feet. Other paperwork and the subsequent pilot statement supply different distance and height estimates. These are visual estimates from an aircraft on approach, not a measured track from another instrument.
The immediate concern was unreported traffic near an operating airport. The absence of a notification meant that the controllers could not supply the expected identity. It did not, on its own, establish a craft outside ordinary aviation. The dialogue includes UFO speculation, but also repeatedly considers ordinary aircraft.
The controller’s later view
After the airliner landed, the controller darkened the tower and went outside with binoculars. In his December statement, he said he saw one luminous object north of the island for about thirty seconds. He estimated a distance of ten to fifteen nautical miles and an altitude of roughly 2,000–3,000 feet, with an impression of east-to-west movement.
He attributed the distance and altitude assessments to calculation and his experience as a controller. They were not radar-derived values. He described good weather and visibility and reported no sound. Its appearance suggested an aircraft viewed head-on with approach lights on, yet he said he did not think it was an aircraft.
When specifically questioned, he said he had seen only one object. About three minutes had passed between the pilot’s initial communication and his own observation from the terrace. That delay and difference in number matter. The controller provided a second visual report within the episode, but not a simultaneous, instrument-linked confirmation of the pilot’s two objects.
Differences within the paperwork
An early airport letter said the controller had seen the objects before the pilot’s notification. His later sworn statement explicitly answered no when asked whether he had seen them beforehand. That statement instead gives the sequence of the airliner landing, the tower lights being extinguished and the binocular observation outside.
The radio transcript records the controller referring tentatively to two lights or something seen through binoculars, whereas the later statement says he saw only one object. The inquiry’s concluding summary speaks broadly of two lights seen by pilot and controller. A careful account needs to retain those differences rather than silently combining them into an identical pair seen continuously from two positions.
The variations do not establish dishonesty. They show why the original exchanges and individually attributed statements are more useful than a single polished summary. They also limit how securely the pilot’s estimates can be assigned to the controller’s later light.
The pilot’s interpretation
The formal pilot statement was taken in Palma on 16 February 1979. He described observing the traffic with the unaided eye in good weather while the airliner was on final approach at about 150 knots. He estimated the other traffic at about eight nautical miles and below 500 feet.
He likened the white lights to the small fuselage lights on aircraft that illuminate the leading edges of the wings. He judged the apparent size compatible with two jets and estimated a very high speed, comparable to the normal maximum of a fighter. His expressed identification was two jets in formation at high speed.
Those comparisons are valuable because they come from an aviation witness explaining his own observation. They are still assessments, not a registration, a military sortie record or a positively matched flight plan. The later front-of-file summary compresses some of the speed descriptions differently; the sworn account is the clearest place to read the pilot’s actual jet interpretation.
The pilot also said the tower had initially not seen the traffic but later reported having it in view. That supports the broad sequence of notification followed by another observation. It does not remove the controller’s qualification about seeing one object or his different altitude estimate.
What control centres knew
Palma checked with Barcelona during the exchanges, and the surviving correspondence records a further enquiry to a combat operations centre. No identification was supplied. These negative enquiries are part of the case and should not be ignored, but neither are they radar confirmation of the lights.
The controller’s questioning included whether Palma knew of traffic or saw anything on its screen, with a negative response recorded in his statement. No positive radar return attributable to the unfamiliar traffic is presented in the released record. A radar tag would therefore imply evidence this file does not provide.
Likewise, the northern island direction does not make the episode an underwater-object case. The material describes lights or traffic in the air. It does not describe entry into the sea, emergence from water or a submerged continuation. The supported feature tag is multiple-lights, reflecting the pilot’s pair of white light sources.
The investigation took several months
The airport reported the episode in October 1978. Further administrative exchanges followed in November, and the formal proceedings began in December. The controller gave his statement that month. Obtaining the appropriate pilot’s evidence took longer: the proceedings include a January examination of another pilot who could not supply the requested account, followed by the February statement from the man associated with the actual flight.
That sequence should not be mistaken for several different airliner encounters. It documents the effort to obtain testimony about the same October event. The aircraft’s destination, the witnesses’ later locations and the offices handling the enquiries are not separate incident sites.
On 24 February 1979, the investigating officer concluded that the lights were apparently two fast jets in formation. The regional covering letter said that its command lacked grounds to alter his opinion. The later release assessment recommended declassification, without identifying a particular operator or aircraft pair. The encounter date remains 24 October 1978; the inquiry and 1995 release are later documentary stages.
How strong is the jet explanation?
The jet interpretation has direct support from the pilot’s description of the lights, size, formation and apparent speed. It is more specific than a generic suggestion attached decades later. It was also the conclusion selected in the original inquiry. For those reasons, the outcome is Possibly Explained.
The qualification remains necessary. No matching aircraft identities or flight records are established in the file reviewed, and the controller’s account is not wholly aligned with the pilot’s. A physically possible aircraft appearance and an officer’s judgement are not equivalent to a positively documented identification of the objects. Equally, the lack of an identification does not establish extraordinary technology.
Location and primary source
Approximate map area: 39.89, 4.27, a rounded Maó/Mahón locality reference from GeoNames for the Menorca airport reporting area. It is not the exact tower position or the estimated position of either light north of the island. The event was airborne, and this historical record makes no public-access claim for airport operational areas.
Read Biblioteca Virtual de Defensa, dossier 781024 and the 36-page digital release. Physical pages 14, 16 and 17 preserve the conversation; pages 22–23 contain the controller’s statement; page 34 gives the pilot’s February statement; page 36 contains the investigating officer’s conclusion. The front summary should be compared with those individual sources. The lead image reproduces the government assessment, not a photograph of the lights.
The GeoNames Maó record supplies the coordinate reference. For a separate Spanish flight report with a different explanation, search the Cases directory for IB-435 and its 1969 Venus inquiry. Sources and the archive’s explicit CC BY 4.0 digital-copy licence checked 13 November 2026.