US officials: Most drones seen in Northeast are manned aircraft

[Bo Zarts]

42. I'm very knowledgeable about both: I am a licensed UAS (drone) and airline pilot. And I agree with you.

I remember similar hysteria in the past, way before drones. Then, it was always UFOs. Let me set up a very simplistic scenario for you.

Let's imagine that I am flying a Boeing 737 or MD-80 inbound to Atlanta from, let's say Charlotte, on a very clear night .. or a night with a high overcast. You are on a hill top in eastern Alabama looking toward the northeast. I am flying a published arrival routing (STARS) into ATL, and Atlanta Center has already slowed me, and dozens of other jets inbound from the northeast, to 250 knots. Aircraft are landing to the west at the Atlanta airport.

As I decent through 10,000 feet, more or less over the Georgia/SC stateline, I do three things: 1. signal "sterile cockpit" rules to the entire crew; 2. double check that I am doing 250 knots (as that is the speed limit below 10,000 feet), and; 3. SWITCH ON EVERY EXTERIOR LIGHT THAT IS NOT ALREADY ON. That means the ultra-bright landing or recognition lights come on, the wing ice lights come on, the tail logo lights comes on. I want to be very, very visible to any other aircraft out there .. day or night.

What you see to the northeast from your vantage point on a hill in Alabama, about 150 miles away (but you are looking at a 2-D picture without any depth perception at all), is a light that is moving very slowly downward, as if floating downward. There is zero sound, because .. well, 150 miles. Now multiply this one weird light (my landing light) times about 20 .. or 50 .. lights of jets on the arrival above and below me. But with no depth perception it just looks like lights floating downwards.

Meanwhile, departures off of ATL's parallel east-west runways appear to be balls of light floating slowly UPWARDS. They have accelerated to 250 knots, the speed limit below 10,000 feet .. but you cannot tell that they have any forward motion at all.

Now. Both inbound and departure aircraft have to turn to 1. align with the landing runways, or 2. joint the standard departure (SID) routings. It is a daisy-chain of airplanes .. inbound and outbound .. that you are viewing .. or whose lights you are viewing .. in two-dimensional space. It looks like highly choreographed flights of saucers straight from the planet Mars. Slowly down .. slowly up .. slowly left .. slowly right .. and not a sound.

I have seen it from the ground too, and I already know and understand what it is. But I am still amazed at the tricks the eyes and the mind play on my rational thinking. And I have flown in and out of the NYC area airports (JFK, LGA, and EWR) extensively, and I know how close those arrival and departure routes are .. or appear to be .. to New Jersey.

This is an over simplified scenario, and there is no doubt that there are some drones flying in that area at any given point in time. But as an airline accident investigator back in the 1990s, I found out how susceptible the general public is to the power of suggestion and how unreliable eyewitnesses to accidents can be. Way too many aircraft are reported as have "exploded in the air" before making contact with the ground when, almost always, the opposite is true. Don't always believe your lying eyes.

Captain Bo Zarts