An American Airlines jet just barely avoided a collision with a drone while flying over Florida earlier this year, a federal official revealed at a drone conference in San Francisco this week.
Jim Williams, head of the Federal Aviation Administration’s unmanned-aircraft office, said that an American Airlines pilot told officials that the jet he was flying on March 22 had a very close call with a “small remotely piloted aircraft” about 2,300 feet above the Tallahassee Regional Airport.
“The airline pilot said that he thought the [drone] was so close to his jet that he was sure he had collided with it,” said Williams.
While the aircraft was not damaged at all, Williams said the event – which seems to be the first incident of a major U.S. aircraft almost crashing into a drone – highlights the fact that “the risk for a small [drone] to be ingested into a passenger engine is very real.” American Airlines declined to comment on the near-crash, telling The Wall Street Journal only that it could not find evidence of the event. Read more at USA Today.
{Andy Heller-Matzav.com Newscenter}
