A Drone? A Really Big Bird? A UFO? What Did Alitalia Pilot See Near JFK?
FAA Looking Into Pilot's Claim Of Seeing Unmanned Or Remote-Piloted Aircraft
March 4, 2013 7:40 PM
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A mystery in the sky over New York City on Monday got one commercial airline pilot’s attention.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a report from the pilot, who claims he saw an unmanned or remote-controlled aircraft while on his final approach to John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The pilot, who was at the controls of Alitalia Flight AZA 60, spotted what may have been a drone about four to five miles southeast of the airport at an altitude of 1,500 feet while on final approach to Runway 31 Right at about 1:15 p.m.
The Alitalia flight landed safely minutes later.
Please stay with CBSNewYork.com for more on this developing story
Comments
Jared,
While your comments are more than welcome, and I respect your opinion, you language is not. let's keep it clean OK? While I understand this is a hot button topic for a lot of people and emotions can run high, it doesn't do anyone any good let ourselves get caught up in those emotions.
Regards,
Nathaniel ~KD2DEY
well someone was an idiot in the posting of this, he says it it a drone, a bird a UFO
This post has been edited to meet Forum Guidlines as to the use of four letter words.
Is he that retarded, IT WAS A UFO FOR @#&* SAKE, IT WAS FLYING , IT WAS UNIDENTIFIED AND IT WAS AN OBJECT, UFO DOES NOT MEAN ALIENS!!!!!!!!!! for the love of @#*& people.... My butt is hurting from this and yes i am mad bro.
Having read all the comments, I wanted to offer some speculation from a commercial pilots perspective. There has been some controversy of the legitimacy of the pilots being able to even see a drone at their phase of flight they were in and the speeds they were travelling at.
I am going to make some assumptions, based on the evidence of the report. First off I am assuming the weather was fairly good, as the drone was at 1500. When the ceiling is high and the visibility is good, it is very likely the flight in question was cleared for a visual approach. Depending on the airlines SOPs it is possible the pilots were hand flying. Even if they were still using the autopilot it is likely they were looking out the window. When they are on a visual approach the pilot flying will have there attention out the window and be watching for traffic, birds, and the airport to maintain a stable approach. The pilot not flying will mostly be monitoring the instruments and making any calls to the PF of any excessive deviations. I am only mentioning this as I read some comments that it is unlikely that a pilot would be looking out the window if they were on an ILS approach. Even if they were cleared for an ILS approach, but were in visual conditions they would be looking out for hazards.
On nice weather days ATC likes to clear planes for visual approaches because their tolerances for spacing is reduced and the pilots are helping keeping separation for other air traffic. This is a big advantage in a high density airspace such as JFK.
As for seeing something small like a drone at the speeds they would be traveling (180kts is a good guess but maybe as slow as 140-150) it is likely they could have seen it and made a fairly good identification of it. Depending on where the drone was in relation to the approach path, there could be a good view. Sometimes a bird will seem to almost follow you. I have hit birds and had near misses all of which you see coming. Unfortunately for the birds there is not much you can do but continue on your approach path. When you get closed to a bird it is very easy to identify the species. Even at 180kts.
The amount of hours a pilot has that is flying overseas is usually quite high. Therefore they would have enormous experience seeing birds. I would then assume they know when something is not a bird. What benefit would the pilot have to make it up.
Having said all that, it is likely it wasn't a bird. To say its a drone tho, is a stretch. Probably someone with some FPV gear flying too high. Much like that video of the RC plane flying around downtown NY.
My 2 cents.
Adam
If there 'was??' a drone this is probably what happened to it when the plane went by at 200 feet get your scuba gear
there is a lot of water on the approaches to JFK http://youtu.be/xTY2MG-AgKQ
Carl,
That video really puts it in perspective. After watching the video I feel it would have been possible for the pilot to have seen and recognozed a quad. I think we need to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one. The only thing I still have reservations about is his ability to estimate the distance and altitude of the quad especially over water. It's nearly impossible without a point of reference to visually estimate these things. Consider this example, you have a 1/100 scale model at a distance of 10' and a full size object at 1000', viewed with the naked eye our perspective makes both appear to be the same size. If we however add something of known size into the picture as a reference we can discern that the scale model is in fact smaller and wecan begin to estimate it's actual size and distance. The point is the size of quads varies adn it would be very difficult to accurately estimate distance and altitude without something to gauge it against. If the quad was at the same altitude he could estimate altitude very well, however that makes his ability to identify the object in profile very difficult, so I think it is likely that it was either above or below his flight path. I haven't seen any reference to a relative altitude, but I'm guessing it was below. The really scary thing here is that I don't think anyone will argue it would very difficult to spot a quad from an aircraft on final approach under these conditions. How many times has this happened and gone un-noticed??
Regards,
Nathaniel ~KD2DEY
Guys check this out there is a lot of water could have been a Duck !http://youtu.be/q4YoXyYBbYA
Has anyone considered the possibility that if it was a quad, it may have been a flyaway and accidental? However, if that's what happened, the owner is still in the wrong, he should have come forth immediately and identified himself. Just pondering...
My club field is also within the restricted/controlled/whatever airspace of an air force base. I didn't know that until somebody posted that Skyvector website. I had no idea the airspace extended 10 miles!
I'd say generally everybody at the club stays below 400 feet, but occasionally the military pilots do too! I've seen C-130 and C-17 flying very, very low, quite far from the airport. Not to mention SAR helis coming in and out.
I've always thought they were flying too low and somebody should say something, here's one more reason. I should take a picture of these guys, banked over 45° just a few wingspan's up (only way I can measure visually) right over the city, in weather even. That's reckless, IMO.
I think we all agree that what this guy did is bad for the hobby...
Let's show the FAA, the FBI and other law enforcement that we hate what happened and help them find this guy...and offer him up to them. Don't protect him, don't justify his actions, don't blame the pilot for getting it wrong. It doesn't matter if it was a quad, a tri, a AR Drone or an airplane...it was part of our hobby, we need to communicate the message in clear, strident tones that this person was operating outside of common sense, outside of what our community supports!
I think the best way to communicate this message is to assist law enforcement in finding and prosecuting the person responsible.
Actually, so far I only fly fixed wing UAV. I was at the airport coming back from a work conference that I was at since Friday when he called so he was probably able to verify that easily. How he got my name and number...who knows. But I wont be surprised if they keep in touch. It's possible that everyone on this site and others is in a database somewhere by now.
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