Airline Flight Had Close Call With Drone In March

A US Airways commuter flight nearly collided with a drone in March near the airport in Tallahassee, Fla., according to a Federal Aviation Administration official. Jim Williams, head of the FAA's unmanned aircraft office, told a conference that the pilot of a regional US Airways flight saw a camouflage-painted drone fly so close to the airliner that "he was sure he had collided with it."

The incident, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, happened March 22 above Tallahassee Regional Airport. "He reported what appeared to be a small, remotely piloted aircraft at approximately 2,300 feet in the air," Williams said Thursday at the Small Unmanned Systems Business Exposition in San Francisco...