{"id":213557,"date":"2026-03-10T19:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T19:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/213557\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T19:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T19:54:12","slug":"navys-doomsday-plane-spotted-circling-the-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/213557\/","title":{"rendered":"Navy’s ‘Doomsday Plane’ spotted circling the Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 People around the Central Valley looked up Sunday, March 8, to see a large, unmarked airplane flying unusually low and repeatedly circling the area.<\/p>\n

The aircraft spent nearly two hours making mock landings at the Fresno Yosemite International Airport, according to observers.<\/p>\n

The plane was identified as a Boeing E-6B Mercury, often referred to as a \u201cDoomsday Plane.\u201d <\/p>\n

People around the Central Valley looked up Sunday, March 8, to see a large, unmarked airplane flying unusually low and repeatedly circling the area (FOX26 NEWS).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s an airborne control for all of the nuclear triad or the nuclear systems of the United States,” Retired Air Force Major General Clay Garrison, Castle Air Museum Chairman, said. <\/p>\n

\"E-6B<\/p>\n

E-6B Mercury flight tracker (Map: Flightradar24)<\/p>\n

[RELATED] 144th Fighter Wing in Fresno honors Clovis with F-15 fighter jet dedication<\/a><\/p>\n

The only visible markings are the Navy\u2019s white five-pointed star centered on a dark blue circle, along with red-and-white bars. <\/p>\n

The aircraft is designed to be resistant to electromagnetic pulse, or EMP.<\/p>\n

The E-6B Mercury serves as a communications relay and strategic airborne command post.<\/p>\n

\u201cManages the nuclear forces from an airborne command post in the event that the command post on the ground, off it, was taken out in a surprise attack, if you will, or if it’s just out of service or whatever that would be,” Major General Garrison said. <\/p>\n

Its mission is to provide \u201csurvivable, reliable and endurable airborne Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications (NC3)\u201d for the president, the secretary of defense, and U.S. Strategic Command.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can control the bombers, if the bombers are on alert, they can control the missiles, because the missiles are always on alert, and obviously they can control our ballistic missile submarines,” Major General Garrison said. “It’s all combined into one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Navy operates two operational squadrons of the aircraft: the \u201cIronmen\u201d of Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron 3 and the \u201cShadows\u201d of VQ-4. <\/p>\n

The planes deploy from their main operating base at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, supported by the Take Charge and Move Out (TACAMO) Weapons School and the \u201cRoughnecks\u201d of Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron 7, a fleet replacement squadron.<\/p>\n

Aircrews also deploy to forward operating bases at Travis Air Force Base in California; Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska; Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland; and other locations as directed.<\/p>\n

If you got photos or videos of the plane, please upload them to our Chime In page.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 People around the Central Valley looked up Sunday, March 8, to see a large,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-213557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}