FAA bans drone flights over parts of New Jersey

Audio By Carbonatix

The Federal Aviation Administration said on Thursday that it was temporarily barring drone flights over 22 critical infrastructure locations in New Jersey.

The FAA said the decision to bar drones for 30 days at the sites was made in an abundance of caution at the request of federal security agencies after the agency barred drones over two locations in New Jersey in November.

The new locations across the state include Jersey City, Elizabeth, Edison, South Brunswick, Camden, Metuchen and Bridgewater. A frenzy of concern about drones in New Jersey and surrounding states has prompted a dramatic spike in the number of people in the area pointing lasers at airplanes flying overhead, which is illegal and can be dangerous, the FAA said on Wednesday.

U.S. agencies have repeatedly said that the spike in drone sightings does not pose national security risks and that they appear to be mostly aircraft, stars or hobbyist drones.

The FAA said on Wednesday that reports are up 269% to 59 in the first half of December, compared with eight in the same period last year. The FAA said it has received dozens of new laser reports from pilots in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania airspace.

The FBI in New Jersey warned people on Wednesday not to shoot at suspected drones or point lasers at them, warning that "there could be dangerous and possibly deadly consequences if manned aircraft are targeted mistakenly" as drones.

Officials have repeatedly said that most of the large fixed-wing sightings involved manned aircraft, and came after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Monday called for more federal comment on the reported sightings. There are about 1 million registered drones flying about 42 million flights annually.