If there’s one thing that people that love drones love, it’s drones. Buying them. Flying them. Repairing them. Reading reviews of them. Watching videos about them. They love drones! They can’t get enough of them! If there’s another thing they love, it’s shutting down airports by flying drones near them.
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Earlier this week, a 38-year-old man in the UK was charged over an incident that saw planes grounded at Heathrow Airport on Christmas Eve. Around that same period, over 1000 flights were grounded at Gatwick Airport after one was reportedly sighted. Today, flights at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey were temporarily grounded after a drone was spotted by pilots.
According to a transcript obtained by CBS, the drone came within 30 feet of one plane:
“There’s something flying here, we thought it might be a drone. There is definitely something there.”
“Yes sir, it definitely looks like a drone… We missed the drone about 30 feet away from the right wing.”
It was spotted at flying at an altitude of 3500 feet above Teterboro Airport, prompting the FAA to briefly shut down Newark Liberty as a safety precaution.
Normal #EWR operations have resumed after arrivals were briefly held by the FAA due to reports of drone activity north of the airport earlier this evening. We’re coordinating with the FAA & fully supporting all federal law enforcement authorities as they investigate this incident
— Newark Liberty International Airport (@EWRairport) January 23, 2019
According to CBS, the sighting a prompted a police helicopter search for the drone. According to Newark Liberty, flights afterwards experienced an average delay of 55 minutes, which is probably enough to ruin at least one person’s day.