King Air pilots beware of unmanned drones flying well out of their 400 foot limits and into your airspace. As if pilots don’t have enough natural occurrences to watch out for, now they have to add drones to their list. Over the past few weeks, there have been a series of close calls between passenger planes and unmanned drones flying above their FAA approved limits. The incidents occurred in some of the nation’s busiest airspace, including Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, and LA. According to ABC News,
“New FAA numbers show that since June, pilots have reported 25 near-collisions with drones. On Nov. 19, JetBlue flight 842 out of Georgia encountered a drone as it neared JFK airport.”
This has occurred at some of the largest airports in America. Pilots are reporting that drones are not showing up on their radar and are flying at dangerous heights in their airspace. NBC News stated that,
“The FAA limits drones to flying at a maximum of 400 feet and not within a 5 mile radius of an airport. However, the past few incidents that were reported by the pilots indicate the drones were flying at elevations of 4,000 feet, 3,500 feet, 1,300 feet, and 8,500 feet. As the pilot reported the drone to tower at 4,000 feet, he also noted that the drone had just missed them as it flew over top of the airplane. A collision between a plane and an unmanned drone could cause a number of dangerous outcomes including damaging an engine or cracking a cockpit window.”
Regardless of size, the FAA considers it extremely important to ensure that no aircraft come into contact with another aircraft. The FAA is furthering their investigations to ensure that this issue does not escalate any further. They realize the effects of a collision could be catastrophic and consider these close calls with unmanned drones to be a very serious issue.