United Flight 1513, a Boeing 737-700 inbound from Key West with 106 people on board, is on final approach to Newark Liberty on a Friday afternoon when the crew sees a small circular object — perhaps three feet across — flash past about a hundred feet beneath the aircraft.

The 737 lands safely minutes later. But three days on, across the city, a JetBlue crew descending into JFK reports something worse: they believe they actually struck one.

Two of the busiest airports in America, a single week, and a hazard the FAA still cannot reliably see coming — or trace back to whoever is flying it.

A hundred feet over Newark

United 1513 was on short final around 5:20 p.m. on Friday 26 June when the crew spotted the object — round, roughly three feet wide — passing about 100 feet below the jet. The 737-700 touched down safely about ten minutes later. Within the same window, a United Express regional flight operated by GoJet told controllers it had seen a drone near 2,000 feet on its own approach.

One hundred feet is nothing at approach speed. A jet on final is heavy, slow, and configured with flaps and gear down — the worst possible moment to take an object through an engine or a windscreen.

Then a strike at JFK

Three days later, on the morning of 29 June, the pilot of JetBlue Flight 948 reported hitting a drone at about 3,000 feet while on final approach to JFK, the FAA said. A post-flight inspection found no damage to the aircraft. The same morning, a helicopter crew near JFK reported a near-collision with what they described as a model plane.

No damage is the good news. The bad news is the altitude: 3,000 feet is far above the 400-foot ceiling hobby drones are legally held to, and miles from where any recreational flier has business being.

Why this keeps happening

Consumer drones are cheap, everywhere, and increasingly capable of climbing into exactly the airspace where airliners are lowest and most vulnerable. Remote-identification rules exist, but enforcement is hard, and in both New York cases the FAA has not been able to say who was flying the device. A drone is also a nastier threat than a bird: instead of soft tissue, it packs a dense lithium battery, motors, and a camera that can shatter a windscreen or wreck a fan.

For now the tally stands at a string of near-misses and one no-damage strike. The fear that hangs over every one of these reports is the day that lucky streak finally runs out.

Sources: CNN; Gothamist; ABC7 New York; Federal Aviation Administration.