CASA’s AVBL-7 form exists for one very specific reason, and that reason just flew over southwest Queensland

CUNNAMULLA, QLD — The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has confirmed the activation and issuance of Form AVBL-7 following a reported encounter over Cunnamulla at approximately 14:20 AEST on Thursday, making this the first time in the agency’s history that the form has ever been filed. Not drafted. Not tested. Filed. By a real pilot. About a real thing in the real sky over real Queensland. I want that to sit with you for a second.

Thirty-six witnesses on the ground, including a fuel depot crew, two teachers on a school excursion bus, and at least one person who had previously described themselves as ‘not a cryptid person,’ all reported the same object moving in a northwest to southeast arc across open sky. Descriptions converged on a singular, deeply unsettling detail: the wingspan was enormous. How enormous? That is precisely the problem. The wingspan, according to CASA’s own accompanying documentation, could not be classified using existing instrumentation. That is not my editorializing. That is in the paperwork.

Community Notice

The Form That Should Not Exist But Does

Form AVBL-7 — full designation: Aerial Biological Visual Log, Class 7 — is described in its own accompanying notes as ‘applicable in circumstances where wingspan classification is not possible using existing instrumentation and the pilot has requested they not be asked to estimate again.’ That last clause. That pilot-requested clause. I have been covering anomalous aviation events for eleven years and I am telling you: somebody, at some point, was asked to estimate a wingspan, gave an answer, and whatever happened next led to a formal regulatory protection being written into civil aviation bureaucracy. CASA has not commented on who that pilot was. CASA has not commented on when that prior event occurred. CASA has, however, confirmed the form is now active.

It came over the ridge and I thought it was a shadow at first. Then the shadow had a head. I don’t have more to add to that.

— Sandra Pickett, Cunnamulla Fuel Depot Supervisor, 22 years service

The cryptid literature on Thunderbird sightings — and yes, what was observed Thursday bears every hallmark of what researchers classify as a Thunderbird event — has long documented the particular effect these encounters have on credible, professional witnesses. Pilots. Air traffic personnel. People who spend their working lives reading the sky and who, because of that, know with absolute certainty when something does not belong in it. What’s unusual here is not the sighting itself. What’s unusual is that CASA apparently had a contingency plan for it. That contingency plan is AVBL-7. The contingency plan got used. I have submitted seventeen questions to CASA’s communications office and received one response, which read: ‘Form AVBL-7 was issued correctly and in accordance with existing procedure.’ Existing. Procedure.

I’ve flown that corridor for nine years. I know what a wedge-tail looks like at altitude. I know what a drone looks like. I know what weather phenomena look like. I filed the form. That’s all I’m going to say. I filed the form.

— Pilot, name withheld under AVBL-7 protocol, identity confirmed by WTC

WTC has requested the full AVBL-7 documentation under freedom of information provisions. We have also reached out to the ornithology department at the University of Queensland, two independent aviation engineers, and a retired RAAF wing commander who, when read the witness descriptions over the phone, was quiet for a very long time and then asked us not to use his name. We are continuing to report. What flew over Cunnamulla on Thursday afternoon is not in any registry. It is not in any field guide. It is, however, apparently in a CASA form that nobody had ever needed to use before now. This is Daryl, WTC News. Stay low.