I saw a report in Ming Pao – Dutch pilot captures PLA anti-missile test, I looked up the Instagram page of this Boeing 747 freighter pilot Christiaan van Heijst, and sure enough, I found these precious photos.

Here we go again.. Last night, flying from Hong Kong to Baku over the Himalaya mountains, we witnessed something that was truly a once in a lifetime event. What started unexpectedly with an unusual bright spot on the horizon quickly changed into a droplet-shaped bubble that rapidly grew in size and altitude. Just a few minutes later, the rocket's exhaust gasses started forming a brightly curved trail that was accompanied by various illuminated spots in the dark sky that varied in color and shape, probably depending on the angle by which they were illuminated by the sun. This visual spectacle came as a total surprise for us and the only thing we found in the NOTAMS for our route was a 'temporarily restricted airspace' with a 100km radius somewhere south of Urumqi in north-west China with no mention of the nature of the closure, let alone a possible rocket/missile launch. Also, a quick search on google gave me no results about any publicly announced launches for this weekend. EDIT: apparently it was a Chinese anti-ballistic missile test; (French) http://www.eastpendulum.com/4-essais-de-missile-balistique-en-juillet The entire event took no more than 12 minutes, from first spotting the bright light to the last dissipating glowing spots in the sky. My knowledge of hypersonic shock-waves and the behavior of exhaust gasses in the upper atmosphere is extremely limited, but looking at the photos it seems to me that there have been two rocket stages burning after each other in succession. Taking into account that the Chinese suffered a catastrophic launch of a Long March 5 exactly 3 weeks earlier, it might be logical to assume this was a test-flight of another rocket in a relatively remote area of China with little to no witnesses. Except a Dutch pilot and a camera that they might not have counted on ;) See my blog for more info and high res photos; https://jpcvanheijst.com/blogs/2017/07/596970-rocket-launch-over-china #china #rocket #space #launch #interstellar #jpcvanheijst #photodaily #photography #missile #instasky #sky #news #instadaily #instaphoto

A post shared by Christiaan van Heijst (@jpcvanheijst) - Jul 24, 2017 at 8:51am PDT

Christiaan van Heijst is a master photographer himself, his personal website is very, very cool. Also, his photo book is available on Amazon, so I ordered a copy.

His blog also has an explanation of this shoot, Anti-ballistic missile test over China, which mentions a Chinese website that also explained the same launch: 20170723NOTAM There are many photos on these two webpages, so I won’t excerpt them here.

Finally, I won’t translate, just copying the Ming Pao report, sorry.

The "Daily Mail" reported that 34-year-old Christiaan was flying from Hong Kong to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, when he crossed the Himalayas and unexpectedly saw a missile lifting off north of his route, in northwest China. Christiaan said that at the time, the flight altitude was about 32,100 feet (about 9,784 meters), one hour after the sun had set below the horizon, a very dazzling bright light suddenly burst out in front of them, "we found a very bright spot of light suddenly appear on the horizon, and it rapidly expanded and rose". He realized it was the trail of a rocket or missile lifting off, so he took out his camera to capture it.

Knew beforehand that parts of Chinese airspace were closed

Christiaan said that about a minute later, while the first “balloon” was still expanding, another trail appeared above it, “I think this is the second stage of the rocket igniting, at this point I concluded we were witnessing a hugely powerful missile launch”. Christiaan stated that the crew knew beforehand that certain parts of Chinese airspace north and south of the route were closed, but did not know the details, nor had they received notification of a missile launch in the no-fly zone, so the event came as a surprise. Christiaan learned afterwards that this was an anti-ballistic missile test conducted by China, “I also learned that the no-fly zone north of our route was the launch site, and the southern no-fly zone was the area where missile debris might fall”. He expressed that the passenger plane he was flying might have been the only aircraft flying near the anti-missile test area at the time, “this is a once-in-a-lifetime event”.

Local military commentator Leung Kwok-leung also saw this report. He said this should be an anti-missile test, especially the luminous serpentine trail of the anti-missile system, which appeared when tracking targets and making adjustments.

Don’t sleep when flying, keep an eye on the outside, After all, you never know when such valuable shutter opportunities will appear.

2017/08/07 The book arrived, and I had a small interaction with the author on Instagram, hehe.

@jpcvanheijst さんの作品「CARGOPILOT」が届きました。今まで見た最高の飛行機コックピット写真集。本当に素晴らしい！

A post shared by Lei (@yinlei) - Aug 7, 2017 at 6:41am PDT

Awesome, my book Cargopilot is travelling the world! Hope you like it @yinlei https://t.co/h4BHtmVGLO

— JPC van Heijst (@JPCvanHeijst) August 7, 2017

2018/2/19 Christiaan’s cockpit photo won the OPEN CATEGORY grand prize at IPOTY2017, congratulations. INTERNATIONAL OPEN CATEGORY DISCOVERY OF THE YEAR 2017 Christiaan van Heijst (Netherlands) A visit to the stratosphere