U.S. military officials over the past weekend said that an aircraft was intercepted by fighter jets near President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Saturday.
In a statement, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said a “general aviation aircraft” was intercepted by an F-16 fighter at around 12:20 p.m. on Saturday after it entered a NORAD-enforced flight restriction area temporarily imposed over Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
The F-16 jet, NORAD said, “executed a standard headbutt maneuver to gain the pilot’s attention” before communication was established.
The aircraft then exited the restricted area and complied with the military’s flight instructions.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to an Epoch Times request for comment about what the “headbutt maneuver” means.
The NORAD statement did not provide an explanation.
According to the military and space company MiGFlug.com, a headbutt is a non-contact move that is “a deliberate pass in front of the intruder, close enough to be impossible to miss, used to redirect a pilot when radio calls have not worked.”
NORAD, which is based in Colorado and oversees joint operations for both the U.S. and Canadian militaries over North American airspace, did not say what kind of aircraft entered the restricted zone.
The statement said that if NORAD intercepts an aircraft, a “pilot should immediately come up on frequency 121.5 or 243.0 and turn around to reverse course until receiving additional instructions on one of those frequencies.”
It added that pilots who violate FAA airspace restricted zones “may also be met by federal authorities upon landing and subject to enforcement action.”
Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were in the Palm Beach area in Florida on Saturday, where they cast early ballots in the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
When he was asked whether he voted for Republicans, Trump said, “Very much so.”
Data from the University of Florida’s Election Lab show that more than 32.9 million people voted early in the midterms, including 16.7 million in-person early votes and 16.2 million who returned mail-in ballots.
Saturday’s NORAD statement isn’t the first time that the U.S. military confirmed it intercepted a plane that entered restricted airspace near Trump this month.
In Clemson, South Carolina, near where the president held a rally for U.S. Senate candidate Darline Graham, NORAD reported that F-16s intercepted a plane that entered restricted airspace.
Days before that, the military said a similar interception occurred over Cincinnati, Ohio, near where a Trump rally was being held in northern Kentucky.
Earlier this year, NORAD said it intercepted five Russian aircraft near Alaskan or Canadian airspace, although the military at the time said the Russian planes were not seen as a threat.
In that February incident, NORAD said it detected and tracked two Russian Tu-95s, two Su-35s, and one A-50 operating near the Bering Strait on Thursday.
In response, NORAD launched two F-16s, two F-35s, one E-3, and four KC-135 refueling tankers to intercept, identify, and escort the Russian aircraft until they departed the area, according to a release.
The command said it used satellites, ground, and airborne radars and aircraft to detect and track aircraft.
NORAD is headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado, but has its Alaska operations based at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
