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Drone Comes Within 200 Feet of Airliner Over New York

Posted by Soulskill on from the now-the-tsa-wants-to-take-your-rc-helicopter dept.

New submitter FoolishBluntman sends this quote from CNN: "An unmanned drone came within 200 feet of a commercial jet over New York, triggering an FBI appeal to the public for any information about the unusual and potentially dangerous incident. The crew of Alitalia Flight 608 approaching John F. Kennedy airport on Monday reported the sighting. 'We saw a drone, a drone aircraft,' the pilot can be heard telling air traffic controllers on radio calls captured by the website LiveATC.net. ... The unmanned aircraft, described by the FBI as black and no more than three feet wide with four propellers, came within 200 feet of the Boeing jetliner. The FBI said it was looking to identify and locate the aircraft and its operator. A source with knowledge of the incident says investigators interviewed the pilot and others on the Alitalia plane."

8 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's a drone dammit by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Funny

    R/C model planes are much harder to legislate against. So it's drone, dammit!

    As long as it didn't have more than 3.4 ounces of liquid, or nail clippers mounted to it, I don't see the problem.

    --
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  2. That was my pet ROFLcopter, sorry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mah bad. I built it with an Arduino and some motors from Radio Shack and I had no idea it could fly so high. What a rush!

    Now that I know it works, I'll be continuing with my plan to airdrop 32 oz. beverage containers over the city... muhahahaha!

  3. Re:That's not a drone by Fri13 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Shh..... UFO is suppose to be sci-fi!

  4. Re:It's a drone dammit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    In other news, the drone had muted yellow/orange and black color markings, and moving wings. When the co-pilot saw it, he said, "if THAT's just a 'drone', I don't WANT to see the Queen!"

    Planes attempting to track the drone to its origin were met by many more airplane-sized flying intruders that were similar to the "drone" except that their tails sported "stinger" missiles. This put a real buzz-kill on things.

    We now return you to our regularly scheduled double-feature: "T.H.E.M." / "MANT". And tonight at 8pm, we have our in-depth investigative report: "Giant Mutated Hyper-Intelligent Man-Eating Cockroaches: Threat or Menace?"

  5. So what? by MMC+Monster · · Score: 4, Funny

    If the pilots and passengers didn't have anything to hide, why were they concerned?

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    Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
    1. Re:So what? by Errol+backfiring · · Score: 1, Funny

      Well, wouldn't you be at least a tad surprised if you saw a part of a bagpipe minding its own business at 1750 feet?

      --
      Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
  6. Re:That's not a drone by BlueStrat · · Score: 4, Funny

    And it was identified as man less flaying machine...

    How in the world did someone manage to launch a lesbian sadist to that altitude?

    I think I now understand Janet Napolitano's intense personal interest in the incident, however.

    Strat

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  7. Re:It's a drone dammit by Culture20 · · Score: 5, Funny

    It was a scary color and had a bayonet mount.