A United Airlines Boeing 737 carrying 48 passengers and six crew members landed safely at San Diego International Airport on Wednesday morning after the pilot reported a possible drone strike at approximately 3,000 feet during the final approach, triggering a federal investigation into what may be one of the more dramatic examples of unauthorized drone activity in commercial airspace this year.
United Flight 1980 departed San Francisco International Airport at 6:53 a.m. and arrived in San Diego at 8:28 a.m. on April 29. After the Boeing 737-800 touched down, the pilot radioed ground control to report that the aircraft may have struck an object on the base leg of the approach — the phase of flight when a jet flies perpendicular to the runway before turning toward it. The pilot described the object as red, shiny, and too small to make out any details. Maintenance crews inspected the plane after landing and found no damage to the aircraft.
Minutes before the possible impact, the pilot had asked Southern California Terminal Radar Approach Control whether any drone activity had been reported near his position. Controllers said they were unaware of anything in the area. Federal aviation investigators are now probing the incident; according to a Federal Aviation Administration statement, the crew initially reported spotting a small red object roughly 1,000 feet below the aircraft at around 4,000 feet. Air traffic control alerted nearby pilots, but no additional sightings were received.
Federal rules bar drone operators from flying above 400 feet without authorization and prohibit unauthorized drones from entering controlled airspace around airports. Violators face civil penalties up to $75,000 per offense and possible criminal charges. Despite those rules, federal aviation data shows more than 100 drone sighting reports near airports arrive every month, and pilots reported more than 1,850 such sightings in 2025 alone.
Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport, the primary commercial hub for Upstate South Carolina, faces the same category of risk. In 2014, an Envoy Air Embraer 145 on approach from Dallas-Fort Worth encountered an unmanned aircraft below it at roughly 2,000 feet near GSP — an incident federal investigators examined. GSP has published drone guidelines requiring operators to obtain airspace authorization before flying near the airport; questions can be directed to GSP Operations at 864-848-6220. South Carolina lawmakers have also introduced House Bill 4679, the South Carolina Drone Regulation and Public Safety Act, which would ban drone operations within five miles of any airport without prior federal authorization and create new state-level felony penalties for the most dangerous violations. The bill is before the House Judiciary Committee as of early 2026.
