FAA puts temporary ban on drones over part of New York, New Jersey

The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday added more temporary bans on drone flights over 30 areas across New York.

The announcement comes after the FAA on Wednesday placed initial temporary drone bans over 22 areas in New Jersey amid complaints of strange and often bright flying objects in the night sky.

“At the request of federal security partners, the FAA published 22 Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) prohibiting drone flights over critical New Jersey infrastructure,” the FAA said in a statement to CNBC on Thursday.

The new TFRs will last until Jan. 19 and cover large parts of southern New York and Long Island, including all five boroughs of New York City. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul had requested the bans.

The initial bans cover parts of central and northern New Jersey, including Elizabeth, Camden and Jersey City, and will last until Jan. 17. The FAA also added bans in two other areas across the Garden State: Evesham and Bedminster.

New Jersey residents have reported seeing unexplained drones flying through sky for weeks, which prompted criticism from local officials and law enforcement, who said agencies including the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are not transparent enough with residents.

The FBI and DHS said last week that they had seen “no evidence” that the drone sightings “pose a national security or public safety threat.” They added that they had no evidence of a “foreign nexus” to the drones. On Saturday, the agencies said they had found “many of the reported drone sightings are, in fact, manned aircraft being misidentified as drones.”

“At this point, we have not identified any basis for believing that there’s any criminal activity involved, that there’s any national security threat, that there’s any particular public safety threat or that there’s a malicious foreign actor involved in these drones,” a DHS official said over the weekend.

Meanwhile, drone stocks rallied this week after Palantir announced a partnership with Red Cat Holdings, coupled with the rise in interest around the mysterious sightings. Shares of Red Cat, a Puerto Rico-based drone provider, are up rougly 10% on Thursday.