Low flying commercial jets

Bear with me as I'm not a pilot (someday?) and my
experiences are based on flight sims. Also, I don't
know if this is the best group to ask, but I've been
lurking here for a couple months and you guys seem
like a nice bunch.

I live a couple miles due east of Los Alamitos Air
Station (KSLI) in North Orange County, CA. Being an
aviation nut I enjoy the semi-regular F-18's and
occasional cargo planes flying overhead.

However, tonight, and on a couple other occasions in
the past few months, at around 9-10 PMish there have
been some commercial jets flying extremely low. The
first time I saw it I thought it was on final to Los
Al. It was at about the right altitude. They were
flying west towards the station but just before getting
there, instead of turning left to land on 22 they
turned right a bit to avoid the station altogether and
seemed to head towards LAX. I have followed the planes
in my binocs as far as I could and they seemed to be
headed that way. BTW, I'm about 24 miles from LAX.

What I find odd is their extremely low altitude this
far from LAX. The plane tonight looked like an MD80
or similar and was so low that the wingspan was about
the same as a fist held at arms length. It was easy to
see the flaps down and other features even though it
was night.

There was only the one aircraft tonight but on previous
occasions there would be as many as 5-6 over a 30 minute
period all on the same route. Normally there is nothing
flying around here that low that isn't going into Los Al.
Most times the F-18's are turning from base to final over
my head.

So my question is for anyone familiar with the area what
the deal might be? I'm not concerned. Just extremely
curious.

Thanks for any comments.

Brian
--
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