News, deep dives, and analysis — every Airport story, newest first.
Drones and airports coverage tracks two very different stories that happen to share a location: reported drone sightings and incidents near active runways, and the new eVTOL infrastructure airports are building for the next generation of aircraft.
On the incident side, the pattern worth noting is how often an initial report doesn’t hold up. JetBlue reported a drone strike at JFK that, on investigation, dented nothing but the truth, following an earlier JetBlue pilot report of striking a drone at 3,000 feet over JFK with no damage or debris ever found. Not every reported sighting is even a drone, either: a second JFK “drone” turned out to be a red-and-white RC airplane the FAA wasn’t bothering to chase.
On the infrastructure side, Orlando Airport greenlit an eVTOL vertistop pad and is awaiting FAA sign-off, part of a wave of airports adding eVTOL landing infrastructure years before passenger air taxi service is expected to actually launch at scale.
Every airport drone story, incident and infrastructure alike, is in the feed below.
Last updated August 25, 2026 — the feed below updates with every new story.
Orlando International Airport approved development of an eVTOL vertistop near its train station, putting demonstration air taxi flights within reach if the FAA signs off and construction stays on track.
Manna has appointed former DAA chief executive Kenny Jacobs as executive chairman and president, four weeks after the Irish drone delivery company grounded its home-market fleet and pointed its growth plans at the United States and the United Kingdom. The company said Jacobs arrives as it shifts focus to markets where regulation and local planning…
A JetBlue pilot approaching John F. Kennedy International Airport reported hitting a drone at roughly 3,000 feet on Monday, June 29, and within hours the story was everywhere: a plane, a drone, a collision over New York. Then the aircraft landed, mechanics inspected it, and they found no damage. None. No dented leading edge, no…
A Bell 407 helicopter near JFK reported a drone over Floyd Bennett Field. The pilot identified it as a model plane, and the FAA isn't investigating.
A JetBlue pilot told air traffic controllers his Airbus A321 collided with a drone at roughly 3,000 feet on final approach to John F. Kennedy International Airport around 7:15 a.m. EDT on Monday, June 29. Flight 948 had flown overnight from Las Vegas and landed safely six minutes later at 7:21 a.m. A post-flight inspection…
A junior mining company just used a drone to map a Nevada tungsten property that nobody had explored since the 1950s. Western Star Resources, trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange as WSR, said on June 22 it is running a high-resolution drone magnetic survey across the White Star Tungsten Project in the Charleston Mining District…
NASA, UNOS, and LifeNet Health have successfully completed what they are calling a first-of-its-kind study: transporting human kidneys by drone.
A shark attack that critically injured a 35-year-old woman at Sydney’s Coogee Beach on Saturday has pushed Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority to reconsider the drone restrictions that limit shark-spotting flights at one of the city’s most exposed beaches. The restrictions exist because Coogee sits under the flight path of Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport, which…
Coverage on this desk includes several cases where they didn't: a JetBlue-reported JFK drone strike that dented nothing but the truth, a JetBlue pilot report of striking a drone over JFK with no damage or debris ever found, and a separate JFK 'drone' that was actually a red-and-white RC airplane the FAA declined to chase.
A vertistop is a landing pad for electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, smaller than a full vertiport. Orlando Airport greenlit an eVTOL vertistop pad and is awaiting FAA sign-off, one of a growing number of airports adding this infrastructure ahead of eVTOL air taxi services actually launching.
No. Sightings and reported strikes fall under airspace security and incident response, while eVTOL vertiport and vertistop approvals go through a separate infrastructure and certification process, though both ultimately involve FAA sign-off before anything is operational.
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