A drone crashed into a UH-60 Black Hawk over Staten Island Thursday, marking the first time a civilian drone has ever collided with a military aircraft, an Army official said.

“It‘s certainly the first of a military aircraft ... [but] the FAA reported it as the first confirmed collision with an aircraft of any kind,” said Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division. “There have been reports of these kinds of collisions, but this is the first one confirmed.”



There was a crew of four soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division aboard the Black Hawk, Buccino said. There were no injuries from the collision, but the aircraft sustained minor damage to the window and rotor blade, he said.

The crew is based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but was in New York flying in support of the United Nations General Assembly security mission to protect world leaders, Buccino said.



“The Black Hawk was repaired within 24 hours and is back operating again,” Buccino said. “It was never non-mission capable. As a precautionary measure, we changed out a rotor blade, and it‘s back involved in the operation.”

The drone that collided with the Black Hawk was a hobby helicopter, commonly referred to as a quadcopter, Buccino said. The drone’s small size could have contributed to the aircrew’s inability to identify it early enough to avoid a collision, he added.

Following the collision, the Black Hawk crew assessed the damage to the helicopter and determined they could safely return to an airfield in New Jersey for a visual inspection, he said.

“Everyone was calm throughout, and they recovered what pieces of the drone they could and turned that over to the FAA,” Buccino said.

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Media outlets in the area reported the drone was flying at roughly 500 feet. However, Federal Aviation Administration regulations require recreational drones to fly at or below 400 feet.

Although pilots do not need permission from the FAA to fly their drones, there is a registry for those who choose to do so in order to help recover lost equipment. It is not yet known if this drone was registered, and the FAA did not respond to a query from Army Times.

The Army is still conducting an investigation and could not disclose what precautionary measures might be implemented to prevent further incidents, Buccino said.