Security concerns were heightened over the weekend when a potential drone sighting near President Donald Trump’s backup aircraft led to the scrambling of fighter jets and a military helicopter. The incident occurred as the president’s official plane, Air Force One, landed safely in Miami, Florida, while the backup aircraft, SAM47, was temporarily delayed near Joint Base Andrews.
The aircraft departed California at 9:02 PM UTC but encountered a delay after Air Traffic Control (ATC) detected a possible drone in the vicinity of Freeway Airport, located just 10 miles north of Joint Base Andrews.
In response, two F-16 fighter jets, callsigns Brave01 and Brave02, along with the military helicopter Blackjack1, were scrambled to intercept the Target of Interest (TOI).
“Just be advised that we have an active scramble about 10 miles north of Andrews and just waiting on the jet to depart there… active intercept so that is the reason for the delay vector,” an ATC officer informed SAM47.
Despite the rapid response, Blackjack1 confirmed they were “not visual with TOI at this time,” even as ATC provided coordinates and details of the object, describing it as “a potential drone between 5,000 and 6,000 feet” and later noting it was moving at “60 knots.”
Efforts to locate the drone were ultimately unsuccessful as the object disappeared from radar. SAM47 was eventually cleared to proceed and landed at Joint Base Andrews at 1:41 AM UTC.
Trump addresses drone concerns
The incident comes amid investigations into unexplained drone activity in the United States. Speaking to Fox News’ Peter Doocy on last week, President Trump expressed his eagerness to get answers about the sightings.
“I would like to find out what it is and tell the people. In fact, I’d like to do that,” Trump said, later directing White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to investigate the issue.
Referring to previous sightings over his golf club in New Jersey, Trump commented:
“I can’t imagine it’s an enemy, or there would have been, you know, people would have gotten blown up, all of them. Maybe they were testing things. I don’t know why. They wouldn’t have said what it was.”
A pattern of drone sightings
The weekend’s incident is the latest in a series of mysterious drone sightings that have sparked federal investigations. In November and December, reports of drones flying over areas along the Raritan River in New Jersey prompted the FBI, New Jersey State Police and other agencies to issue a public appeal for information.
“Less than 100 leads have been generated and deemed worthy of further investigative activity,” an FBI official stated. A Department of Homeland Security official later suggested that many sightings were likely misidentified manned aircraft or stars mistaken for drones.
Despite thousands of reports, federal agencies concluded in December that the sightings posed no national security or public safety risk. A multi-agency statement confirmed the majority of sightings were attributed to lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones and other explainable phenomena.
Post Image – Air Force One (Post Image Credit: U.S. Air Force)
