The War Zone:
Air Force One Just Had A Near Miss With A Drone According To Reporter Onboard
Reports are emerging describing a potential near miss with an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) while the C-32A that President Trump was flying on was making its final approach into Andrews Air Force base on Sunday evening. POTUS was returning from Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster New Jersey when the reported near miss took place.
AFP’s Sebastian Smith reported on the incident shortly after disembarking the highly modified 757-200, stating:
“@realDonaldTrump just landed at Andrews on AF1. Shortly before, while descending, we flew right over a small object, remarkably close to the president’s plane. Resembled a drone though I’m no expert.”
And another observer wrote:
The danger posed by hobby and other commercially available drones to aircraft isn’t anything new. The Air Force themselves have had a number of very close calls with drones in recent years. You can read those reports in this exclusive War Zone piece linked here.
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The fact that a drone can come so close to the world’s highest-profile and most heavily monitored and defended variant of a commercial aircraft is troubling for obvious reasons. As we have said for many years, one of the biggest threats posed by lower-end drones is to VVIPs, and especially when they are on the move.
We have reached out to the 89th Airlift Wing for more information on the incident, we will update this post if new details come available in the coming hours.
