The appearance of two drones flying nearby Newark Airport yesterday (Tuesday) caused considerable disruption to inbound and outbound flights, with flights being grounded at one point. A pilot at nearby Teterboro airport had reported sighting a drone that came within 30 feet of his aircraft which promoted the actions at Newark. Commenting on the incident, a statement from the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) confirmed that: “At approximately 5pm, we received two reports from incoming flights into Newark that a drone was sighted at about 3,500 ft above Teterboro, New Jersey.
“At that point, flights arriving into Newark were held for a short duration. Since then, and with no further drone sightings, arrivals have been resumed.
“However, we still have a ground stop in place at other airports departing for Newark until a backlog of arrivals can be cleared. We expect that to be lifted soon.”
Commenting on the incident, United Airlines, which uses Newark as a hub, said: “The impact to our operations has been minimal so far. We are working closely with the airport and the FAA to return our operations to normal as quickly as possible.”
While nowhere near as disruptive, this incident is reminiscent of events which took place at the U.K.’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports just prior to Christmas last year. All flights were held for an hour at Heathrow after a potential drone sighting, while at Gatwick grounded all flights between December 19 and December 21 after continual drone sightings during that period. Over 140,000 passengers had their flights disrupted at the beginning of the busy holiday season.
