(NewsNation) — Drone incursions are posing a danger in the skies for commercial aircraft and national security, according to a witness who spoke exclusively with NewsNation.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., has been calling drone incursions over sensitive U.S. military airspace a national security threat, pressuring the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to act last week.
The Pentagon has admitted these violations happen frequently, including incursions that happened for weeks over Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, leading to military assets being brought in.
A firsthand witness spoke exclusively with NewsNation, describing what he saw in December 2023 at Langley Air Force Base. The witness has spoken with the FBI as part of its investigations.
“I would sometimes see a searchlight that would start flashing from the ground and kind of wave back and forth, never really focusing any of them as they went past,” said witness Jonathan Butner. “The orbs, I would say, looked about car-sized. I mean just from that distance, and they kept a very steady pace until they got over that location in which they would start hovering over the base.”
In addition to military airspace violations, drones are also an issue at the southern border, where one lawmaker says cartels are flying drones into the U.S. with the Border Patrol unable to stop them.
Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wisc., says the Border Patrol is outmatched when it comes to drones being used by cartels. NORTHCOM Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Air Force Gregory Guillot said there are likely more than 1,000 incursions per month.
“We have been told when I’ve been down there, that frequently the cartels have access to technology that is sometimes more advanced than what the U.S. government itself can obtain,” Grothman said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we see all sorts of things on the southern border for that reason. The cartels have almost unlimited wealth and it’s unfortunate when you hear Border Patrol say they have these things that our own government can’t afford.”
When it comes to sightings in the sky, whether drones or unknown, Americans for Safe Aerospace Founder Ryan Graves said commercial pilots are not reporting incidents.
“I hear from pilots on an almost daily basis that are reporting this, primarily commercial, that there are standing orders for reporting within the military,” Graves said. “For every one commercial pilot I talk to, he tells me there’s 10 more that just aren’t reporting it right now. I think this is extremely common, more so than I’ve seen the data behind.”
Graves said aviation professionals deserve proper reporting procedures to deal with a potential safety issue.
Graves also noted that it doesn’t matter whether the violations of military airspace are from other nations or something outside of our world to constitute a national security risk.
“We don’t have to know where they’re from to know it’s a problem. The fact is, we have unknown assets operating over those types of facilities is a full stop,” Graves said. “We don’t have to determine whether they’re a foreign adversary or whether they’re UAP. All we know is that they are there, and we need to have the resources and attention to be able to deal with it.”