Drone Reports Near U.S. Airports Reflect Rising Issue for Critical Infrastructure
A JetBlue pilot said a plane collided with a drone as it was approaching the runway at JFK International Airport in New York on Monday.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating the incident, which occurred as the plane was crossing the coastline at around 3,000 feet above sea level, according to the Associated Press (AP). The pilot landed the plane safely and an inspection after landing found no damage to the plane.
“Drones are generally allowed to fly below 400 feet (122 meters), but the FAA does restrict airspace around airports and public events like the World Cup because of safety concerns,” the AP reported. “Law enforcement officials say that even when a drone pilot is just trying to shoot an overhead video, their presence distracts officers from dealing with other potential threats.”
Hours after the reported collision, a helicopter pilot called in a close call with a remote-controlled airplane, which also occurred close to JFK airport.
And only a few days earlier, a United Airlines flight crew reported that it had encountered an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) in a near-miss as its plane was arriving at Newark Liberty International Airport on 26 June. The flight, which was traveling from Key West, Florida, to Newark, New Jersey, landed safely.
The three incidents represent a rising problem. The FAA now receives more than 100 reports of drone sightings near airports every month.
“Operating drones around airplanes, helicopters, and airports is dangerous and illegal. Unauthorized operators may be subject to stiff fines and criminal charges, including possible jail time,” the agency said.
“While [a drone] may not be a threat to every organization, it is or can be a threat to some of our most critical assets,” said Nicole Palumbo, chief operating officer of Magos Americas, in a panel presentation at SIA’s Perimeter PREVENT on 24 June. The event was focused on layered security approaches for policymakers, federal agency personnel, and private security practitioners.
Security managers with sites near international airports, correctional facilities, ports, and critical infrastructure are keenly aware of the daily threat that UASs can present, according to a recent report from DroneShield based on a survey of senior security managers, operations directors, and authority officials from across the globe (excepting South America).
Airports and other aviation facilities had the highest-consequence exposure from drone threats. Seventy percent of survey respondents from the aviation sector said that an unauthorized UAS near an active runway presents an immediate flight safety risk, and the regulatory implications and damage to brand reputation from an incident can be severe.
Corrections and prisons face different impacts when it comes to drones. Survey respondents (13 percent) were most concerned about drones being used to deliver contraband to inmates, including narcotics, cell phones, and weapons.
“Drones are a major problem at correctional facilities,” Palumbo said at the SIA event. “I learned just recently that a bad actor that drops a payload of contraband inside of a prison gets paid upwards of $40,000 a drop.”
Meanwhile, 9 percent of operators at ports and maritime facilities said drones are often used for surveillance, espionage, and potential sabotage to target cargo and assets.
One overarching concern security managers reported, though, is how to respond to drone threats.
“The industry knows exactly what is needed and is largely unable to deliver it, constrained by detection gaps, regulatory barriers, fragmented systems, and an absence of the standardized frameworks that effective response requires,” the report explained.
Drone risks continue to present a common threat because of inadequate detection, absent legal authority, fragmented procedures, and dependency on external agencies that cannot always respond in time, the report noted. So even though counter-UAS objectives exist in policy documents and contingency plans for organizations, “the systems, authority, and trained personnel to deliver on them do not yet exist in practice.”
One of the biggest constraints to achieving counter-UAS objectives is regulatory constraints. Approximately 60 percent of respondents across the sectors said they lacked the legal authority to take direct mitigation action against unauthorized drones, even when the threat to safety is clear and immediate.
“This is not a technology problem. It is a policy problem,” the report said. “And it defines the ceiling on counter-UAS readiness in the current environment: operators can detect a threat; they can classify it, and then they must wait for external authorization to act.”
While the regulatory landscape varies depending on the jurisdiction, respondents noted that any response to a drone beyond detection and reporting relies on external parties—aviation authorities, law enforcement, and national security agencies.
“That reliance introduces delays,” the report said. “In scenarios involving aircraft safety, active contraband delivery, or infrastructure surveillance, those delays have direct operational consequences.”
Respondents added that while regulatory clarity and system integration are a must, the top priority remains detection and situational awareness.
“They are the foundational requirement from which everything else follows,” the report said. “An operator cannot coordinate with authorities around a threat they have not detected. They cannot escalate through a regulatory framework against an incident they are unaware of.”
