GoPro on Weather Balloon Captures an Airliner Flyby at 38,000 Feet

Strapping GoPro cameras to high-altitude weather balloons to shoot photos and videos of the edge of space has been growing in popularity, but on GoPro just captured something incredible that no GoPro had before: an extremely close flyby of a passenger airliner at 38,000 feet.

The project OLHZN High Altitude Balloons launched a GoPro balloon flight from Honeoye, New York, and the camera traveled to an altitude of 102,544 feet and landed near Syracuse, New York.

On the way, however, the camera captured an incredible moment in which a Delta Airlines Airbus A319 flying from Boston to Detroit zipped by at an altitude of 38,000 feet. The airplane passed within 500 feet of the camera, creating an extremely loud sound in the resulting footage (the moment starts at about 40 seconds into the video).

This is an extremely rare chance encounter for a flight that was conducted safely and legally.

“All of our flights follow FAA Federal Aviation Regulation requirements outlined in FAR 101 and have NOTAMs filed with the FAA and coordination is performed with the local ARTCCs and airports to ensure safe operations,” the project writes. “This is the raw audio version with no music added. No sound effects have been added at all. This audio is completely raw.”