Video of an F-35A Lightning II leaving Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has people doing double takes online. The airport is the world's busiest by passenger volume, and the footage shows commercial terminals, Delta aircraft, and fuel tanks sitting right behind the fighter. The jet rotates sharply right after takeoff and lights its afterburner, with a bright engine flame trailing it. It then climbs almost straight up into the overcast sky, a vivid show of the thrust from its Pratt & Whitney F135 engine.

The departure has been linked to a Delta Airlines Veterans Day event, which would explain why a combat aircraft was operating from such a busy civilian hub. Military aircraft do sometimes appear at commercial airports for ceremonial or logistical reasons, though most travelers never see one up close. That is part of why the clip has drawn so much curiosity. Viewers are asking how a fighter jet is fit into the schedule of a major airport, and how it is coordinated with the airline traffic around it. Neither the airport nor the military has explained those details yet.