Feb. 12—TRAVERSE CITY — The Federal Aviation Administration on Sunday closed airspace over the northern part of Lake Michigan for just under two hours.
No commercial flights were canceled or delayed as a result of this closure, according to flight data from Cherry Capital Airport.
"The FAA briefly closed some airspace over Lake Michigan to support Department of Defense activities," FAA Public Affairs Specialist Rick Breitenfeld said to the Record-Eagle in a statement. "The airspace has been reopened."
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in their own press release this closure occurred around 12 p.m. on Sunday. They updated the statement at 1:51 p.m. to state the flight restriction had already been lifted.
Cherry Capital Airport Director Kevin Klein said around 2:30 p.m. all operations into and out of the airport had already returned to normal.
"This impacted our flight pattern so that aircrafts operating at TVC could avoid this area," Klein said in a statement.
Neither NORAD nor the FAA have said exactly what caused the brief airspace closure.
U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman later Tweeted "the U.S. military has decommissioned another 'object' over Lake Huron."
Less than 24 hours prior to the Lake Michigan closure, both the FAA and NORAD announced a similar temporary airspace closure over Montana.
NORAD said in a statement yesterday that in Montana they had "detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter aircraft to investigate." Once the aircraft searched the area, NORAD said they did not find any objects that could have been related to what they saw on the radar.
Both cases are still under investigation by the FAA and NORAD as of Sunday afternoon.
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