A kite appears to have hit a United Airlines flight landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Virginia.
The incident occurred on Saturday 29 March when the aircraft is believed to have made contact with United flight 654 from Houston.
A spokesperson for United said that it was aware of the reports.
“The aircraft landed safely, customers deplaned normally and upon inspection there was no damage to the aircraft,” it said in a statement.
Officers with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police Department said it received reports of a kite flying at Gravelly Park just north of the airport runway.
Kite flying is prohibited at the park because of the low-flying aircraft in the area.
Emily McGee, a spokesperson for the department, confirmed that a kite was “briefly confiscated” on Saturday.
Witness Jamie Larounis told NBC that he saw 10 or more kites flying from the park space just north of Reagan National’s main runway.
While most were flying relatively low, he spotted a green “run-of-the-mill kid’s kite”, which looked to be controlled by two adults and a child.
“One kite got progressively higher and higher,” he said, before it hit the aircraft between an engine and the fuselage.
The kite took a dive, but re-emerged in the air briefly before it was seen on the ground with a family, its string tangled and in a ball, he said.
Mr Larounis called airport police to report the incident because he was concerned the kite may have caused damage to the plane.
He added that he was particularly sensitive about air safety following the collision of an American Airlines flight with an army helicopter near the airport in January which killed 67 people.
Shortly afterwards, law enforcement officials attended the scene and interviewed the operators of the kite before confiscating it.
“That kite was returned to its owner shortly later, and no charges were filed,” Ms McGee added.
Federal regulations prohibit kite-flying near an airport.
Increased anxiety about aviation safety follows a series of US air disasters that have occurred in 2025 so far.
In February, a medevac jet crashed in a residential area of Philadelphia killing six people on board.
And in the same month, a Delta Airline plane crashed on a snow-blanketed runway at Toronto Pearson Airport.
Miraculously, no one was killed in the aviation accident.
Source: independent.co.uk
