The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday temporarily banned drone flights over 22 New Jersey towns for what it says are “special security reasons.”
An FAA spokesperson told NBC New York the temporary flight restrictions apply to “critical New Jersey infrastructure” and were implemented “at the request of federal security partners.”
The closure applies to airspace in a 1-mile radius from each of the 22 locations, up to 400 feet above ground level, which is the upper limit of most recreational drones.
While the vast majority of unmanned aircraft will be banned, the FAA does make exceptions. Flights necessary for national defense, homeland security, law enforcement, firefighting, search and rescue, or disaster response will be permitted, for instance, as are commercial activities with a valid statement of work.
The restrictions are scheduled to expire Friday, Jan. 17, 2025.
Michael Melham, the mayor of Belleville, New Jersey, floated a theory earlier this week that the drones might be searching for missing radioactive material. The state Department of Environmental Protection quickly swatted it down, noting the “missing radioactive material” Melham referenced was just a package briefly misplaced by FedEx.
Residents in New Jersey have reported more than 5,000 drone sightings to the FBI in the last few weeks, describing the unmanned crafts as car-sized and seemingly capable of staying aloft for hours at a time.
“When I would get up and look out my window at 2 a.m., 4 a.m., they were still hovering,” Morris County resident Julie Shavalier told NBC News earlier this month.
“I got up at 5:30 a.m. this morning and they were still there as the sun was starting to rise,” Shavalier added. “They went back in the same direction they came from, and I expect they’ll be back as soon as the sun goes down tonight.”
Of the more than 5,000 tips, however, only 100 have so far led to further investigation.
The FAA said Tuesday that the vast majority of purported drone sightings in the area have simple explanations. Those include “a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones.”
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The FAA did confirm that “a limited number” of drone sightings have been within restricted airspace over military facilities in the state but cautioned that such sightings “are not new.”
A spokesperson for Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, a sprawling 42,000-acre installation in New Jersey roughly 30 miles east of Philadelphia, told The War Zone, a news outlet for military and defense coverage, that they see several such incursions a year. But so far, the drones have only been trying to sneak contraband into a federal prison that’s on the base.