Mysterious drones in New York temporarily shut down runways at an Orange County airport, a frustrated governor said, calling for federal assistance and declaring that "this has gone too far."
The New York Stewart International Airport was forced to close runways Friday night for about an hour "due to drone activity in the airspace," Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement.
In a statement Saturday to NBC New York, the Federal Aviation Administration said it slowed air traffic temporarily late Friday night "due to multiple reported drone sightings near and over the airport."
The agency said there have been no safety impacts to aircraft.
The airport received a report of a drone sighting from the FAA around 9:40 p.m. Friday, said a spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The runways reopened at 10:45 p.m., the spokesperson said. The closure did not impact flights.
"This has gone too far," Hochul said.
The drones have been spotted over New York, New Jersey and other states in the Northeast, sparking concern and confusion. Some lawmakers, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. and New Jersey Republican Reps. Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew, have called on the military to shoot them down. Experts, however, have said that shooting them poses a safety risk and is illegal.
Hochul said she directed the New York State Intelligence Center to actively investigate the sightings and coordinate with federal law enforcement to address the drones. The efforts remain ongoing, the governor said.
"But in order to allow state law enforcement to work on this issue, I am now calling on Congress to pass the Counter-UAS Authority Security, Safety, and Reauthorization Act," she said. "This bill would reform legal authorities to counter-UAS and strengthen the FAA’s oversight of drones, and would extend counter-UAS activities to select state and local law enforcement agencies."
"Extending these powers to New York State and our peers is essential. Until those powers are granted to state and local officials, the Biden Administration must step in by directing additional federal law enforcement to New York and the surrounding region to ensure the safety of our critical infrastructure and our people," Hochul added.
The White House has said that it has "no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus." Officials have said the drones flying over New Jersey in the past few weeks appear to be commercial-grade and not recreational.
During an interagency background call Saturday, an official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reiterated that there is no "evidence that there’s a threat to public safety."
An FAA official said that it is not illegal to fly drones in U.S. airspace, while an official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation said there has "been a slight overreaction" to the drone sightings.
"We’re confident that many of the reported drone sightings are, in fact, manned aircraft being misidentified as drones," the DHS official said in the call. "There is no evidence to date of any foreign based involvement in sending drones ashore from marine vessels in the area."
