A kite flown in restricted airspace near Ronald Reagan National Airport on Saturday came in contact with a landing plane. United Airlines confirmed reports that a kite struck Flight 654 as it arrived from Houston around 4pm, per NBC News. The plane landed safely "and upon inspection there was no damage to the aircraft," the airline said. The kite operator had sent up the kite at Gravelly Point, a park in Arlington, Virginia, just north of the airport's main runway, where kite-flying is banned "due to low-flying aircraft landing at DCA," according to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) Police Department. It noted the kite was "briefly confiscated."
It was one of at least 10 kites flying at the park on Saturday, a witness tells NBC. The man says "one kite got progressively higher and higher" before hitting the plane between an engine and the fuselage. "It looked like it was right on the flight deck," a pilot said in reporting the kite to air traffic control, per WUSA. "It's just a little scary given the recent history at DCA—our issues with close calls and what happened two months ago," added a witness at the park, where airport police soon arrived. They questioned two adults and a child, whose tangled kite was seen on the ground, per NBC. After it was analyzed, the kite was "returned to its owner ... and no charges were filed," per a police rep. (More Ronald Reagan National Airport stories.)
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