Two airliners fly within 100 feet of drone above New York

NEW YORK: Two airplanes flying near one of America's busiest airports each came within 100 feet of a drone on Friday, according to audio from each flight's radio calls.

The first, JetBlue Flight 1843, reported spotting a drone at 2:24 pm while approaching John F. Kennedy International Airport here, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

In the audio recording, the cockpit says that the drone passed just below the planes nose when the jet was flying at an altitude of about 800 to 900 feet.

Then at about 5 pm, Delta Flight 407 -- which had 154 people on board -- was preparing to land when the cockpit reported seeing a drone below its right wing.

Neither plane needed to take evasive action, the FAA said.

Both planes landed safely and each incident is being investigated by the FAA though it's unclear whether the two are related, CNN reported.

The Delta flight had its drone encounter near Floyd Bennett Field, located in Gateway National Recreation Area. A Gateway National Recreation Service park ranger said that the field does not permit drone flying but many aviation enthusiasts can be found flying "radio-controlled propeller crafts and unmanned small jets."

However, there is a space within Floyd Bennett field where people with a permit and members of an aviation club may fly their own small craft, the ranger said.

Unmanned aircraft systems are neither supposed to fly within eight km of an airport without notifying the airport operator and control tower nor are they supposed to go above 400 feet.

But the FAA says it gets about two reports per day from pilots saying they spotted an unmanned aerial vehicle.

Drones that fly too close to commercial flights pose a serious threat to the larger aircraft as they can be sucked into the engine or even crash into the cockpit window.