A small jet slides into the safety area at the side of the runway on takeoff, with no injuries: who cares.

Men with plastic sheeting rush out and cover the words Policia Federal: now we're intrigued. The plane is registered in Mexico. (* And might be this one.)

KTLA's helicopter crew observed the operation as it unfolded.



History aside: A few miles across the Valley, at what they call now Bob Hope Airport, "mystery" planes used to be hidden from view all the time. It was the home of the Lockheed Skunk Works, where the first stealth plane, the U-2 spy plane and other formerly secret craft were developed (before being ferried to somewhere even more secret — Area 51? — for flight testing.) An ex-Skunk Works exec told in a book about the time an emergency broke out in the secret hangar and the Burbank FD couldn't be let in to put out the fire or whatever it was until enough smoke obscured the firefighters' view of the current project. Apocryphal perhaps, but a good story.