Flyovers Weren’t Attacks, FBI Says

Reports of two Mississippi River flyovers by planes spreading a white substance were false alarms, with the substance likely nothing more than smoke, the FBI said Wednesday.

In Friday’s incident, a towboat crew near Rosedale, Miss., reported being sprayed by a crop duster. Now agents believe the smoke discharge may have been intended by the pilot as a greeting to those below.

“I’m told that was common,” said Robert Cromwell, FBI acting special agent in charge in Mississippi. “Hopefully now that won’t happen anymore.”

Crew members were released from a 60-hour quarantine after no health threat was detected. Examinations of their clothing and the towboat surface found nothing unusual, Cromwell said.

Monday, a Coast Guardsman at a station near Natchez, Miss., 170 miles south of Rosedale, reported being sprayed by a white substance and said a plane was in the air nearby.

Cromwell said investigators found that the substance apparently was in the air before the plane flew over and was consistent with material often emitted by a nearby paper processing plant.

The pilot of that plane, which was not a crop duster, just happened to be flying overhead and contacted authorities the next day.

The state health department advised the FBI that none of the materials found in either case was a dangerous substance.

Cromwell said investigators think they have located the pilot in the towboat flyover. He would not say if the pilot was in Arkansas or Mississippi but said it appears the incident was not meant to be a hoax.

“There was no crime committed that we are aware of,” Cromwell said. “It appears the man blew smoke perhaps as a way of saying hello.”

Reports of a pleasure craft being sprayed along with the towboat were false, he said. People on the pleasure craft saw the substance and thought it was smoke, he said.