WORRIED residents have called for an explanation after three "low flying" planes screeched over rural south Huddersfield last night.

The three planes roared over homes at about 6pm.

A woman from Upper Cumberworth rang the Examiner today concerned about how low the planes were flying.

She said her son who was in his bedroom saw the tail flames of the craft.

"I'm sure they were lower than they should have been," she said.

"It takes only one slip for it to be a disaster."

A Holmfirth woman said her children had been terrified by the noise.

"They were so low, it sounded as if they were going to hit the roof. We thought they were going to crash. It was terrifying," she said.

Mr Keith Alderson, a 64-year-old former soldier and firefighter who lives at Lidgett Lane in Skelmanthorpe, said from the noise he thought the first jet was crashing.

"It was far too low for comfort and the reverberation set off next door's car alarm," he said.

"It was so low I ran indoors to tell my wife to get out of the house as I thought it was about to crash."

He said two further jets then swooped low over Skelmanthorpe and one returned about 15 minutes later.

The complaints came as it emerged that an American military jet dropped a practice bomb close to the Yorkshire village of Holme-Upon-Spalding Moor.

The aircraft was on a training mission from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk when it dropped the 25lb "dummy bomb."

A spokeswoman from RAF Lakenheath said jets did routine flying exercises, often at night, but it was difficult to say if those flying in the Holme Valley were from its base.

She said the F15E Strike Eagle, the US equivalent of the Tornado, was extremely noisy but could go no lower than 500ft during night flying.

"All of them fly within guidelines," she said.