They can. Could they not, no aircraft could ever take off or land. Some aircraft are more stable at that height than others. The most famous Air Force for low level flight is probably the British RAF and the most famous aircraft the Blackburn Buccaneer. As the joke went “Why do Buccaneers returning from a low-level mission, climb just before landing?” Answer: “They have to get ground clearance to lower the undercarriage.”

There is a famous story of the RAF taking part in a NATO exercise in the US where the RAF had to take the part of a low-level Russian below-radar attacker. Nobody wants to be embarrassed in these exercises so they are a tad scripted. The US fighters knew they were coming so positioned right on the deck. After a while they contacted the powers to be, to say that the Brits were a no-show, only to be informed they had long flow past them. The US pilots denied it, saying they were on the deck and nothing had flown across their airspace. The response was (I paraphrase), “It’s the RAF. You failed to look below you!”

That 10 feet 4 inches equates to just over three metres. The Blackburn Buccaneer was designed for Royal Navy operations, and if you look at it from the side you will see the fuselage has a “coke bottle” type shape. This fuselage shape gives the aircraft a cushion of air effect that means it would fly very low over the sea at speed and nothing would let it go any lower.