WASHINGTON — Pilots across the United States have reported a surge in near-collisions and other dangerous encounters with small drones in the past six months at a time when the Federal Aviation Administration is gradually opening the nation’s skies to remotely controlled aircraft, according to FAA records.
Since June 1, commercial airlines, private pilots and air-traffic controllers have alerted the FAA about at least 25 episodes in which small drones came within a few seconds or a few feet of crashing into much larger aircraft, the records show.
Many of the close calls occurred during takeoffs and landings at the nation’s busiest airports, presenting a new threat to aviation safety after decades of steady improvement in air travel.
Many of the previously unreported incident reports — released Wednesday by the FAA in response to long-standing public-records requests from The Washington Post and other news organizations — occurred near New York and Washington.
Until Wednesday, the FAA had publicly disclosed only one other midair near-collision between a drone and a passenger aircraft — a March 22 encounter between a US Airways plane near Tallahassee, Fla., and what the pilot described as a small, remotely piloted aircraft at an altitude of 2,300 feet.
On Sept. 30, air-traffic controllers at LaGuardia airport in New York reported that Republic Airways Flight 6230 was “almost hit” by a brightly colored small drone at an altitude of 4,000 feet as the passenger plane was descending to land.
On Sept. 8 at LaGuardia, three regional airliners — ExpressJet, Pinnacle and Chautauqua — reported “very close calls” with a drone within minutes of each other at a height of about 2,000 feet as they were preparing to land.
On July 29, a US Airways shuttle flight that had departed from Reagan National Airport reported an extraordinarily narrow encounter with a yellow drone with a 4-foot wingspan that passed within 50 feet of the aircraft while it was approaching LaGuardia.
The 25 near-midair collisions were among more than 175 incidents in which pilots and air-traffic controllers have reported seeing drones near airports or in restricted airspace.
Pilots described most of the rogue drones as small camera-equipped models that have become increasingly popular with hobbyists and photographers.
“The potential for catastrophic damage is certainly there,” said Fred Roggero, a retired Air Force major general who was in charge of aviation safety investigations for the service and now serves as a consultant to companies seeking to fly drones commercially.
