Fleet of military aircraft from Oklahoma evacuated to Sacramento due to weather

By James Taylor, KOVR Photojournalist

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    SACRAMENTO (KOVR) — Sacramento’s McClellan Air Force Base was shut down more than two decades ago, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at the tarmac Thursday night.

It’s a sight not seen in Sacramento skies for more than twenty years. For the second week in a row, an entire air wing of large military jets landed at McClellan Park.

Glen Brady is a retired Air Force colonel who now volunteers at the nearby aerospace museum. He was once stationed at McClellan, which was decommissioned as an Air Force base in 2001.

“Those are the types of planes that we don’t see here in Sacramento anymore,” Brady said.

From C-17 cargo planes to KC-135 refueling jets, the unexpected air show of more than two dozen aircraft is attracting a lot of attention.

“I’ll hear them prior to them even getting to the house loud enough, then I can walk out the front door and look up and there it is,” said plane spotter Tim Broughton.

“It’s not every day we get to see these, so just being able to hear them and feel the power generated by the engines gets you very excited,” said Nicholas Acosta, a Sacramento City College aeronautics student.

The planes are from Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma and were evacuated to Sacramento due to severe weather.

“They have a plan in place for those aircraft to go when it’s bad weather so that the planes are not damaged,” Brady said.

So just how bad could the weather get back there?

“These strong storms produce gusts up to 60 to 80 miles per hour along with baseball-sized hail and of course the risk for tornadoes,” CBS13 Meteorologist Ashley Nanfria said.

Why did the Air Force choose McClellan instead of places like Travis or Beale? It comes down to available parking spaces.

“We do have the ramp space here because there aren’t a lot of aircraft here permanently based,” Brady said.

It’s a rare chance to once again see the Air Force flying low over Sacramento.

“That’s the sound of freedom and personally, I love it,” Broughton said.

The airplanes are from the 97th Air Mobility Wing, which provides training to pilots and aircraft crews.

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