UAV reported within 3 miles of LaGuardia Airport

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
March 11, 2013

New York City. Image: Wikimedia Commons

For the second time within a week, police are investigating reports of an unmanned drone spotted flying over New York within three miles of LaGuardia Airport.

According to journalist Christopher Robbins, police scanner audio revealed that the NYPD was called to look into an “unusual incident” concerning reports of a “drone flying” near exit 23 of the Long Island Expressway (LIE).

According to Robbins, the NYPD later reported a “negative result” after investigating the incident, although it is unclear whether this means they couldn’t identify the drone or had discounted the report altogether.

Last Monday, the crew of Alitalia Flight 608 reported a drone just 200 feet away from their aircraft as it approached John F. Kennedy airport. The drone was initially reported as having four engines, but the FBI later described the object as having four propellers and being only three feet wide.

The incident, which occurred at 1,750 feet and roughly three miles from runway 31R , prompted the FBI to ask the public for information on identifying the owner of the drone.

By law, remote controlled planes and drones can only fly to a maximum of 400 feet and operators must notify air traffic control if they are going to fly within three miles of an airport.

In May last year a military or police drone flying in controlled airspace over Denver almost caused a mid-air collision with a Cessna jet.

Last year, Congress passed legislation paving the way for what the FAA predicts will be around 30,000 operating in US skies by 2020.

Within months, the drone industry announced a campaign to “bombard the American public with positive images and messages about drones in an effort to reverse the growing perception of the aircraft as a threat to privacy and safety.”

As we reported in December, thousands of pages of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documents newly released under the Freedom Of Information Act have revealed that the military, as well as law enforcement agencies, are already extensively flying surveillance drones in non-restricted skies throughout the country.

FAA documents obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting last August revealed that the FAA gave the green light for surveillance drones to be used in U.S. skies despite the fact that during the FAA’s own tests the drones crashed numerous times even in areas of airspace where no other aircraft were flying.

Critics have warned that the FAA has not acted to establish any safeguards whatsoever, and that Congress is not holding the agency to account.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.