Late on November 11, 1979, a TAE Supercaravelle with 109 passengers, flight JK-297 from Salzburg to the Canary Islands, was flying near Ibiza when Captain Francisco Javier Lerdo de Tejada and his crew saw a group of red lights approaching fast, apparently on a collision course.
Neither military radar in Madrid nor Barcelona control could explain them. The captain changed altitude, but the lights matched his moves and stayed about half a kilometre away. Unable to shake them, he diverted and made an emergency landing at Manises Airport in Valencia, believed to be the first time a commercial flight was forced down by a UFO.
The lights left just before landing, but radar and witnesses at the airport reported more objects, and a Spanish Air Force Mirage F1 was scrambled from Los Llanos. Its pilot, Captain Fernando Cámara, said he saw a glowing truncated cone and that his systems were jammed when he tried to lock on. Journalist Javier Cavanilles has called it "the most famous UFO case in Spain".