A JetBlue pilot, U.S. low-cost flight company, said he hit a drone on his way to the Kennedy International Airport in New York on Monday morning. The flight departed from Las Vegas after midnight and was preparing for landing when, around 7:15, the crew reported the impact on the Federal Aviation Administration. According to the FAA, the plane was about 3,000 feet, just over 900 meters: a height much higher than the one to which the small civil drones can normally fly outside the air spaces subject to restrictions. The flight landed smoothly, no one was injured and JetBlue said he had found no damage or obvious evidence of a collision after the aircraft inspection. The FAA has opened an investigation.
Caution is necessary because, for now, the ascertained fact is the signal of the pilot, not the finding of the drone or a material sign on the plane. It is however a serious signal, because it arrives in a delicate phase of the flight: the approach to the airport, when the drivers are following a precise course, the plane is downhill and the margin to avoid an object seen at the last moment is very reduced. On its site, the FAA explains that drones do not have to fly near airports because for a plane with people on board it is difficult to see and avoid them, and remember that the responsibility to stay away from the aircraft is of those who drive the drone.
The JFK case happened less than three days after a similar episode near the Newark Liberty International Airport, the other major airport in the New York area along with LaGuardia. On Friday, June 26, the crew of a United Airlines flight arriving from Key West, Florida, reported a drone during the descent to Newark, around 17:20. In that case, the aircraft, a Boeing 737 with more than one hundred passengers and five crew members, had landed regularly. The two reports are not enough to say that there is a problem at airports in New York, but they highlight the difficulties that drones can lead to civil aviation.
In the United States recreational and commercial drones can fly only by respecting rather strict rules. In general, non-controlled airspace must remain below 400 feet from the ground; near airports and controlled airspace, specific authorization is needed. FAA says it receives more than one hundred reports per month of drones seen near airports. In these days the theme is even more sensitive because of the 2026 Football Worlds, which have brought temporary restrictions on the flight over stadiums and public areas: the federal authorities have already seized hundreds of drones entered prohibited areas.
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