John Travolta: How Has He Managed to Stay Out of the Spotlight for a Month?

Find out what the actor, who is a licensed pilot, has done to fly under the radar

By Claudia Rosenbaum May 25, 2012 8:44 PMTags
John TravoltaAP Photo/Evan Agostini

Ever since the wave of lawsuits and allegations against him, John Travolta has been flying under the radar. Figuratively and literally.

While he was seen in Florida recently and is said to now be in the Bahamas, the actor has essentially remained out of the spotlight—aside from his attorney's denials.

But how, in this day and age, is someone as high-profile as Travolta so hard to track down?

As most folks know, Travolta is a licensed pilot.

However, when E! News tried to track the tail numbers attached to two private jets Travolta has used or owns, both numbers were blocked by request of the owner, and blocked aircraft cannot be tracked by the general public.

"Congress enabled a program to allow people to opt out of having their flights tracked in real time over the Internet for broadcast to anyone anywhere in the world who has an Internet connection because Congress realized that there are valid security concerns when that happens," Dan Hubbard, Senior Vice President for the National Business Aviation Association told E! News.

Hubbard said it is his understanding that anyone requesting his or her tail number blocked can simply email the FAA showing they are owners of the aircraft and the valid security reason why they are requesting the block.

Security and law enforcement agencies such as FAA, police, DHS, traffic control TSA, however, can still see the aircraft.

"Everyone who needs to see it, can see it," Hubbard said.

Ah, that explains it.