Suddenly starting trail from small jet in formation (aerial refuelling?)

[Trailblazer]

This video has been shared by "Concerned Citizen", a prominent conspiracy theory account on X:


Source: https://x.com/BGatesIsaPyscho/status/1896327987479650356


It shows four small jets in formation with a large plane, with no visible contrails, then a trail suddenly starts to form from the plane closest to the larger jet.

At first I thought this might be an escort situation, eg the recent AA292 incident, but the behaviour of the trail looks more like a fuel dump/leak than a contrail, so perhaps it is a refuelling mishap?

Reverse searching the video hasn't yielded any matches.

 

[Ann K]

It shows four small jets in formation with a large plane, with no visible contrails, then a trail suddenly starts to form from the plane closest to the larger jet.

I see three small ones and one larger. The trail comes from the larger plane, not from its closest neighbor. The small ones might appear so small because they're higher. It appears that the large one is at a lower altitude, where it may have entered another layer where the air might be more humid. You can see a light cloud throughout.

I've seen a fuel dump, and it had a distinctive yellowish iridescence, as jet fuel has a much higher index of refraction than water/ice. This doesn't look like fuel to me, just an ordinary contrail.

 

[jarlrmai]

The trail forms from the single jet fighter close to the tail of the larger aircraft, contrails from the 2 engine plane would form from behind the wing mounted engines.

 

[jarlrmai]

It's possible this jet fighter is undergoing fueling midair and there is some issue

 

[FatPhil]

The trail forms from the single jet fighter close to the tail of the larger aircraft, contrails from the 2 engine plane would form from behind the wing mounted engines.

View attachment 77840

Where are you getting all the pixels from? All X is sending me is:

$ rmplayer Concerned_Citizen_-_What_changed-\[1896327933339357184\].mkv 
 (+) Video --vid=1 (*) (h264 320x568 30.005fps)
 (+) Audio --aid=1 (*) (aac 2ch 44100Hz)

EDIT: I can fix this my end, I see they're available:

http-2176              mp4 720x1280   │ ≈  3.76MiB 2176k https │ unknown          unknown
hls-691                mp4 720x1280   │ ~  1.19MiB  691k m3u8  │ avc1.640020 691k video only

 

[Trailblazer]

The trail definitely comes from a smaller jet partly hidden behind the tail of the larger plane.

Here is the moment just after the trail begins.

 

[MapperGuy]

The trail definitely comes from a smaller jet partly hidden behind the tail of the larger plane.

Here is the moment just after the trail begins.

View attachment 77844

No real way to tell if the trail comes from the refueling boom or if it comes from the small jet. Most likely it originates from the point where the boom is connected to the small jet. A small leak of some sort.

What was the original question here? Some claim about chemtrails I would assume?

 

[Trailspotter]

It looks to me like a "missing man formation" with one of the planes turning on smoke generator during flypast.

 

[Mick West]

And zoomed in:

It's not really clear to me if it's coming from the left wing of the small jet, or somewhere on the larger jet.

 

[MonkeeSage]

The last ~8 seconds of this video shows the fuel line/tether thing breaking during refueling and creating a trail:


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKX0S5utjQ8&t=15s



This one purports to show a trail from an F15 leaking fuel (not during refueling):


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aQJQZRboEU

 

[Leekster]

I've done a lot of air to air refueling as a fighter pilot.
Sometimes the valves get damaged or don't close up quite right and you get a trail of fuel like that.

Also, the fuel is getting pumped into the fighter at a very high rate. The fighter has vents that let the displaced air escape the fuel tank. You can get fuel venting overboard if the vents don't seal right or the plumbing doesn't behave and shut off the fuel once full.

The tanker itself can have a leaky valve also.

Lots of photos of fighters dumping fuel and you can see it looks just like that.
There are also videos of refueling screwups where you can see the rate it goes out. It's a white trail just like that.

It could also be intentional dumping. It's pretty shocking but a lot of fuel gets dumped by military aircraft for various reasons. Mostly adjusting weight for landing.

Above 5000' or so the fuel gets aerated as it descends and never makes it to the ground as droplets.

 

[Trailblazer]

What was the original question here? Some claim about chemtrails I would assume?

Yes the question "What changed?" implying a switch-on of a chemtrail. This account "Concerned Citizen" has a lot of form in this area...

 

[FatPhil]

Yes the question "What changed?" implying a switch-on of a chemtrail. This account "Concerned Citizen" has a lot of form in this area...

Yeah, we need to get to the bottom of why they were absolutely refusing to spray all that good stuff until they'd passed a certain point. What's wrong with us scumbags on the near side, we want the druuuugs too.

Alternatively, a 2-words question can be answered with a 2-word answer: "valve broke" (or "connector broke")