Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, one of three main airports that serve New York City, halted operations for nearly two hours after two pilots on different planes spotted a drone nearby as they came in for landings. Law enforcement agencies were still investigating the sightings, but so far no drone has been located, a federal aviation official said Wednesday.
The disruption was all the more alarming because it came just one month after reported drone sightings caused the shutdown of Gatwick Airport in London, one of the busiest in Europe.
The upheaval at Newark illustrated how vulnerable the air-travel system is to the proliferation of inexpensive drones that can weigh as much as 50 pounds and are capable of flying high and fast enough to get in the path of commercial jets, experts on aviation safety and drone technology said. It also raised questions about whether airports are prepared enough to identify drones and prevent them from paralyzing travel and leaving passengers stranded.
“This is a really disturbing trend,” said John Halinski, former deputy administrator of the federal Transportation Security Administration. “It is a real problem because drones are multiplying every day. They really pose a threat in a number of ways to civil aviation.”
Pilots fear drones because tests have proved that they could cause the “takedown of an aircraft,” Halinski said. Although technology exists that can detect and deter drones, it is not used at most major airports, he said. “I can’t think of a major airport with anti-drone type of capability,” he said.
A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Newark Liberty as well as Kennedy International and La Guardia airports, declined to discuss how the airports cope with drones, “for security reasons.” In a statement, the Port Authority said “the presence of drone activity near major airports is a serious threat to public safety and can cause significant disruption to flight operations, impacting thousands of passengers.”
The agency said that it was committed to keeping its airports “at the forefront of protection and technology.” Last week, the Port Authority said in the statement, it held a meeting with local, state and federal agencies “to review and enhance protocols for the rapid detection and interdiction of drones.”
At Gatwick, the drone sightings led to the grounding or diversion of more than 1,000 flights over three days, affecting more than 140,000 passengers in Britain.
Until now, the Federal Aviation Administration has been concerned that the technology to keep drones away from airports could interfere with radar and air-traffic control systems. But in the fall, President Donald Trump signed legislation that authorized the Department of Homeland Security to develop measures to counter the use of drones, which are referred to in the aviation community as unmanned aircraft systems.
Proponents of the use of drones say technology exists to keep drones away from airports and other facilities, like prisons and sports stadiums. But so far, it can be used only for detection, not deterrence, they say.
“The only thing we can do is detect the drone,” said James Barnes, founder of the Drone Academy, a training center in Ringoes, New Jersey. Barnes said federal regulators have barred the use of the technology to either block drones from flying over a particular area, to force a drone to the ground or to trace it back to its operator.
Barnes said drones are used for various tasks by police departments and other government agencies, which can include surveillance and counting deer. He said that noncommercial drones are barred from flying within 5 miles of an airport and most hobbyists abide by that prohibition. Still, he said, some hobbyists are tempted because “they think they want to fly with the big boys.”
He recounted a training session with a police officer who saw a MetLife blimp flying overhead on its way to a football game in the New Jersey Meadowlands. He said the officer sent his camera-equipped drone toward the blimp to get up-close images before his instructor reprimanded him for violating a basic rule of drone flight: “You do not interfere with manned flight.”
In the wake of air-traffic disruptions caused by drones, many people wonder why police do not simply shoot down the offending drones. Adam Lisberg, a spokesman for DJI Technology, a drone maker, said such action is generally prohibited.
“It is right now illegal in most cases to interfere with a drone in flight,” Lisberg said. “Drones are considered aircraft.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.