Drone incident with United Airlines flight 1980 near San Diego airport

[Kyle Ferriter]

I originally heard about it here:


Source: https://x.com/thenewarea51/status/2049514635301155320


Covered by NBC San Diego:
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/lo...h-to-san-diego-international-airport/4017186/

NBC obtained a quote from the airline:

Officials with the airlines confirmed the incident later in the morning:

"United Flight 1980 reported a possible drone strike just prior to arriving in San Diego. The flight landed safely, and customers deplaned normally at the gate. Our maintenance team found no damage after thoroughly inspecting the aircraft."

Pilot of United Airlines Flight 1980 (UAL1980) reported to ATC that they encountered a very small, red, shiny drone at approximately 3000ft as their plane was approaching to land at San Diego airport. The flight landed at 8:24PDT (15:24Z). Soon after landing they reported it on the ATC ground frequency.

The recordings from liveatc.net for the "KSAN Ground #1" and the combined "KSAN Ramp/Del/Gnd/Twr" feeds are attached. I've attached the 1500-1530Z and 1530-1600Z files for both.

The clip included in the X post above begins at 25:10 in the "Ground #1" and "Ramp/Del/Gnd/Twr" 1500Z files ("Ground #1" feed filename is prefixed KSAN1-Gnd). To my ears I think it's unclear whether they say they "had a drone" or they "hit a drone". They may indeed say "hit".

Pilot: We hit a drone at around.. probably at around 3000 feet. About uh, yeah, around, on our base leg, which means [unintelligible to me]. Red drone heading west.

ATC: Do you have like an approximate size or how many engines or a style or anything like that?

Pilot: It was so small I couldn't tell. It was red, uh, it was uh, shiny. I couldn't tell [unintelligible], it was really small.

ATC: That's fine, thank you.

UAL1980 would itself have been at about 3000ft around 4-5 minutes prior, at 15:20Z, consistent with the pilot saying it was on their 'base leg' as they did this 180º turn prior to final approach.

It's interesting that no other pilots reported a drone and the airport operation does not appear to have been disrupted. Also that the pilot seems to only have reported it after landing, and after ATC radioed them for an unrelated reason. The pilot did not initiate this exchange with ATC.

I don't think a balloon can be ruled out here with the information provided. The pilot says it was so small he couldn't tell anything about it other than it being red and shiny.

 

[JMartJr]

It sure sounds like a balloon. The color, shininess and the lack of damage sound very balloony.

Edit --- posted before finishing:

I suppose pilots would be less likely to see another plane and think it is a drone, hopefully they know what planes look like! But it seems possible that a given pilot would be about as likely to get caught up in the "I don't know what it i so I'm going to assume drone" as anybody else.

 

[jarlrmai]

Saying there might be a drone gets you taken seriously.

 

[Mendel]

There wasn't a lot of wind, and it wasn't blowing westward.