Drone Comes Within 200 Feet of Airliner Over New York

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday March 5, 2013 @07:11PM 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."

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The cynic in me... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-05 20:08 · Score: 5, Interesting

...thinks it would be easy to set up a Straw Man situation by surrupticiously arranging an agency to do it, then announce to the media that some unidentified incident occurred, which in turn becomes a case for legislating against Joe Citizen being allowed to fly FPVs.
1. Re:The cynic in me... by fazookus · 2013-03-06 01:05 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  You have to wonder how someone in an airliner going 200+ mph could even see something that small going ~0 mph, much less be able to describe it in such detail...