The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating after a United Airlines flight encountered a drone during its descent into Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday evening, according to agency officials.
The plane, a Boeing 737 arriving from Key West International Airport in Florida, was approaching Newark Airport at 5:20 p.m. on Friday when its crew reported a drone in the airspace, F.A.A. officials said.
After reporting the drone, the flight crew landed the plane safely and all passengers were able to disembark without issue, United Airlines said. The aircraft was carrying more than 100 passengers and five crew members, the airline said.
The drone encounter at Newark arrives amid growing scrutiny over the federal government’s handling of drone activity, particularly after a series of incidents in which rogue drones have hampered airport operations and threatened flights.
Operators cannot fly unauthorized drones near airports in controlled airspace, according to the F.A.A., and even when authorized, drone operators must stay within a certain altitude and are bound by several other regulations. The agency also encourages drone fliers to avoid the area near airports more generally, noting that it can be difficult for airplane pilots to see and avoid the small unmanned aircraft.
Still, drone sightings near and around airports have proliferated in recent years.
In February, the F.A.A. closed airspace near the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas twice, including after soldiers shot down a drone that they deemed threatening. That drone was later determined to have been flown by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
A spokesperson for the F.A.A. said on Saturday that the agency received more than 100 reports of drone sightings near airports every month.
Drone companies have been eager to expand their operations in recent years, and the Trump administration has made a point of signaling its support for the industry. In an executive order last year, President Trump laid out “drone dominance” as a priority, ordering the United States to accelerate the safe commercialization of drone technologies and fully integrate drones into the national airspace.
But the federal government has yet to create comprehensive rules for what such “safe” operations would look like, and recent close calls with airplanes, as well as miscommunications between federal agencies over drone use, have prompted concern from aviation officials and lawmakers.
In response to some of that concern, the F.A.A. in May proposed new rules that would ban drones from certain critical infrastructure sites, which could include oil refineries, government facilities and amusement parks, if the facility operators applied for the restrictions.
The episode at Newark on Friday has also highlighted a long-running crisis in the country’s air-traffic-control system, as controllers have left in droves and the F.A.A. has struggled to replace them, creating a severe, and sometimes dangerous, labor shortage.
In May 2025, air traffic controllers briefly lost communication with planes at Newark, leading to delays and disruptions at the airport. The communication disruptions prompted some controllers to take absences under a law that allows federal workers who are physically injured or experience a traumatic event on the job to leave work.
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