Hangzhou

Hangzhou and the Airport Closed for an Hour

On the evening of 7 July 2010 Xiaoshan airport at Hangzhou stopped work for almost an hour: controllers logged an unidentified object in the zone and eighteen flights were diverted. Passengers and residents photographed a bright trail in the sky. It is a rare instance of a report of an unidentified object shutting down a major airport. Days later the authorities said the phenomenon was connected with military activity and gave no details. The likeliest reading is a missile or aircraft trial; a contrail lit by a low sun produces exactly this picture, and the photographs are consistent with it.