Pilots baffled by bright lights from rocket fuel dump

PILOTS flying over Irish airspace on Sunday night were stunned after spotting “swirling bright lights” in the sky, which turned out to be a fuel dump from a SpaceX rocket launch.

- BY CATHAL RYAN

At around 6.30pm Irish time, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried 28 Star-link broadband satellites into orbit from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Pilots flying over Ireland noted “bright lights, swirling and letting off gas” and what looked like an “explosion”, but the “spectacular sight” was actually a fuel dump from the SpaceX rocket.