ARLINGTON, Va. — A United plane made contact with a kite while attempting to land at Reagan National Airport Saturday afternoon, witnesses told WUSA9.
The pilot of United Airlines Flight 654 from Houston can be heard over air traffic radio, giving details about the kite to an air traffic controller.
“You were telling me those details about the kite, whether it was over the park? How high was it?,” an air traffic controller says in audio complied from LiveATC.net.
The pilot, who apparently could see the kite from the cockpit, responds.
“It was over the park about 100 feet over the ground, it looked like it was right on the flight deck. Those guys were a little bit low …,” the United pilot says.
Dylan Oakes, a WUSA9 producer and former flight attendant, was at Gravelly Point in Arlington with his partner at around 4 p.m. on Saturday, when he said the two watched the United flight make contact with the kite.
“There was a kite that looked a little higher than it should be, we thought it might just be a perspective thing from where we were standing but, lo and behold, as the plane got a little bit closer, it came into contact with the kite,” Oakes said.
RELATED: Delta flight has close call with Air Force jet near Reagan National Airport
For the former flight attendant, recent close-calls reported near Reagan National Airport, with one reported Friday, and January’s collision that killed 67 people, made watching what happened with Saturday’s United flight more unsettling.
“The kite fell to the ground. The plane landed safely, thankfully everyone’s O.K., but it’s just a little scary given the recent history at DCA — our issues with close calls and what happened two months ago,” Oakes said.
Gravelly Point is about 1,000 feet away from the runway at Reagan National Airport and flying kites in the park is not allowed, according to law enforcement.
“It could be serious … planes shouldn’t be coming into contact with anything. This kite could have been ingested into an engine, the engine could have possibly failed,” Oakes told WUSA9. “You’re in a critical phase of flight on the approach. At this point, over Gravelly Point, you’re only 100 to 200 feet above the ground, so that’s a really critical phase of flight for the pilots.”
Oakes said he also watched as Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority officers confiscated the kite from a family in the Arlington park.
WMAA said they later returned the kite.
“Airports Authority police officers responded to reports of kite-flying at Gravelly Point today, an activity which is not allowed in that area due to the danger of to low-flying aircraft,” a MWAA spokesperson told WUSA9. “Officers warned some individuals about flying kites and briefly confiscated a kite. That kite was returned to its owner shortly later and no charges were filed.”
United Airlines responded to the incident Saturday, saying there was no damage to their plane and that nobody on the flight had been hurt.
“We are aware of reports that a kite struck UA flight 654 from Houston to Reagan Airport in Washington, D.C.,” the airline said. “The aircraft landed safely, customers deplaned normally and upon inspection there was no damage to the aircraft.”
Video shows the United flight during its approach.
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Air traffic warns American Airlines flight about two kites:
Minutes after the United flight landed at DCA, air traffic controllers can be heard warning an arriving American Airlines flight 5388 from Des Moines, Iowa about two kites flying near the approach.
“Use caution for a kite … reported around 100 feet … We’ve got a report, it appears that it’s two of them. One is like a bright yellow one,” an air traffic controller tells the American Airlines pilot in the audio.
Captain Robert Katz has 43 years of experience as a commercial pilot and instructor and while he said he doesn’t believe the kite actually made contact with the plane Saturday afternoon. Katz said he believes the kite must have been within a few hundred feet of the plane for the pilot to notice it.
“If the kite had actually made contact with the airplane, we would know it,” Captain Katz said. “The kite would have been destroyed and possibly the airplane as well, although not likely.”
The veteran pilot also said he believes whoever was flying the kite had been intentionally reckless.
“That to me is incredibly irresponsible, and it’s going to be a real stretch for someone to claim they don’t know.” Captain Katz told WUSA9. “This is deliberate skullduggery,”
Katz said he hasn’t heard of a kite hitting a plane before but he said that commercial flight interference from the ground happens frequently, and, in his experience, mostly from people shining lasers at planes.
On Thursday, Federal Aviation Administration officials were grilled in the U.S. Senate about close call incidents near Reagan National Airport. On Friday, after the hearings were held, a Delta flight was reportedly within a few hundred feet of a U.S. Air Force jet.
The incident at Gravelly Point appears to be unrelated to the National Cherry Blossom Festival’s Blossom Kite Festival which was held near the Washington Monument on Saturday.