WORTHINGTON - Minnesota State Patrol officers, Nobles County Sheriff Department deputies and Worthington Police Department officers reported seeing it.

At about 4:25 p.m. Dec. 2 some officers along U.S. Interstate 90 reported a "large commercial airliner" flying dangerously close to the ground.

"It was lower than you would normally see a major airplane," said a police officer over the police radio.

One officer reported he had seen the large plane flying low, "about 500 feet off the ground," near sign post 163 heading west toward South Dakota.

Another reported that he had seen it westbound toward Magnolia passing by Nobles County 19.

Inquiries to the FAA tower in Sioux Falls, S.D., indicated the bird in question was a plane with the South Dakota State National Guard on its way to load supplies and troops for its rotation in Iraq's northern no-fly zone.

"It was scheduled to come in earlier, but it was a bit behind schedule," said spokesman Lt. Col. Reid Christopherson. "It's a Boeing 747 and it has pure white markings. I'm sure it looked so much different at certain altitudes."

At more than three-fourths the size of a football field (231 feet) and weighing more than 450 tons, Christopherson was not surprised the plane apparently caught the eye of the vigilant lawmen.

Christopherson said the South Dakota National Guard unit in Sioux Falls has been on the rotation for the past 11 years.

On Thanksgiving, 55 troops were deployed to the northern zone of Iraq.

On Tuesday, another 175 troops were sent aboard the airliner.

"This is the fifth time we were sent over to do it," he said.

Christopherson said the plane came in from the northeast. However, he said it could not have flown at 500 feet, given FAA restrictions.

"I'm sure that the FAA would have hauled us in," he said. "But it's certainly a bigger airplane than people out there are usually used to seeing," he said.

An FAA spokesman said a plane that size is required to be 3,000 feet off the ground when it is within 30 miles of Sioux Falls.

"But that's only 1,500 feet because of the elevation," he said. "That's probably why it looked so big."

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