Close Call With Drone At Albany Airport

There are so many variables that pilots face when landing an airplane and now they have to worry about drones. Over the weekend, there was a close call with one near the Albany Airport.  An airport official said that at around 4:15 pm on Saturday, an American Airlines crew reported seeing a drone flying in the same altitude (about 1,000 feet) as it was descending to land. The incident happened about two miles south of the main runway which is illegal according to FAA standards. Airport security was notified along with the Albany County Sheriff's Office and a search was done on Wolf Road near the Marriott. The drone nor the operator were located.

A drone can do a variety of things to aircraft. It can get sucked into the engines, strike a plane or distract the pilots. It is illegal to fly a drone withing five mile of an airport.

No one was hurt and the flight landed without incident. Scary thought that now a drone is something we are worried about while flying among the other concerns.