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Case · C-045

Manises 1979: the TAE flight diverted to Valencia and the Mirage in pursuit

Valencia-Manises Airport and the sky between Ibiza and Valencia · Spain · Nov 11, 1979 – Nov 12, 1979

In flight Pilots

Disputed explanation

What happened
On the night of November 11, 1979, the captain of a TAE Super Caravelle bound for the Canary Islands with 109 passengers reported red lights on a collision course near Ibiza and made an emergency landing at Valencia-Manises. Shortly afterward a Mirage F1 of the Ejército del Aire (Spanish Air Force) that took off from Los Llanos (Albacete), piloted by Captain Fernando Cámara, searched for the lights for about an hour and a half; the pilot reported sightings and anomalies in the onboard systems. The Mando Operativo Aéreo file, 147 pages long, was declassified in 1994; sources diverge on what the radars recorded, and in 1980, answering a parliamentary question, the government ruled out a UFO and spoke of optical illusions.
Proposed explanation
According to the analysis by Juan Antonio Fernández Peris, taken up by Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos and the Fundación Anomalía, the crew mistook for objects the flares of the Escombreras petrochemical complex (Cartagena), while other lights were stars and planets; the military pilot Fernando Cámara has always rejected this explanation.
Official investigation
Ejército del Aire (Mando Operativo Aéreo, Sección de Inteligencia); parliamentary question of 1980

Official documents

  1. Avistamiento de fenómenos extraños en Valencia, Motril y Madrid: 11, 17 y 28 de Noviembre de 1979 · Ejército del Aire – Mando Operativo Aéreo, Estado Mayor, Sección de Inteligencia · 1979

Sources

  1. El País, “Un ‘ovni’ forzó el aterrizaje de un Caravelle en Manises,” November 13, 1979 (press)
  2. Valencia Plaza, “Los 'Expedientes X' españoles: ¿Qué nos oculta el Gobierno?” (with Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos) (press)
  3. El Debate, the OVNI files of the Valencian Community declassified by the Ministry of Defence (December 2024) (press)
  4. Wikipedia (en) – Manises UFO incident (other)

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