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Nearly a year after a mysterious drone flew through the air for 17 days near a secret military base in Virginia, Sen. Tim Kaine says he is “extremely disappointed” in saying that “too many questions remain unanswered.” I’m frustrated,” he said.
The Virginia Democratic Party said the state’s delegation will receive a confidential briefing on the situation Thursday.
For more than two weeks in December 2023, a mysterious drone flew in restricted airspace over a facility that is a key national security hub and home to the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jet.
The Pentagon has said little about the incident, other than acknowledging that it occurred after the Wall Street Journal report in October. Even if authorities know where the drones came from or what they were doing, they haven’t shared it with Congress.
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“We’re kind of on the one-year anniversary of these attacks in Langley, and I’m very frustrated by the fact that there are still so many unanswered questions,” Kane said on FOX. He told News Digital.
Lacking standard procedures for such intrusions, Langley authorities didn’t know what to do other than hover a 20-foot drone near the sensitive compound.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., April 27, 2021. (Susan Walsh/AP Photo/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
As defense-minded lawmakers pressed for more answers, Langley officials referred to the FBI, which referred to Northern Command, which in turn referred to local law enforcement, one Congressional official said. .
“I urge federal agencies to get their act together and have a clear agency accountable for answers, instead of everyone blaming each other and saying everyone has to go to another agency to get answers. I’m going to continue to lobby,’” Kane said.
The drone over Langley “doesn’t appear to be armed, but at least it’s there for surveillance purposes, and it has disrupted training in Langley.”
And during a recent drone incident in New Jersey, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) were seen near the Picatinny Arsenal and over President-elect Trump’s golf club in Bedminster. President Trump said he canceled a trip to his golf club because of drone sightings.
A drone attack at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio forced the base to close its airspace Friday night, and sightings of unmanned aircraft have also occurred at U.S. military bases in the United Kingdom and Germany.
The spending bill, which must be passed by the end of this week, includes reauthorizing the government’s anti-drone authority. But this is simply a reauthorization of a program that many drone experts say is outdated. Lawmakers and experts focused on national security are urging Congress to pass legislation that would strengthen the government’s detection capabilities and give state and local law enforcement more authority to combat unlicensed drones.
An F-22 fighter jet takes off from Langley Air Force Base to shoot down a Chinese reconnaissance balloon. (US Northcom)
U.S. capabilities offer a variety of ways to bring down drones, including shooting them, zapping them with thermal lasers, and jamming their frequencies so that they stop working and fall out of the sky.
Whether Congress needs to change the law is a matter of debate, but one thing is clear: intrusions like Langley create confusion over legal authority.
“It’s a bit of a problem of having too many cooks, and it’s not clear who the cooks are,” Kane said. “The FAA is paying attention. The FBI is paying attention. The Department of Defense is paying attention.
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“This becomes even clearer if, for example, drones fly over bases in combat zones like Syria, or bases in Iraq where U.S. military personnel are stationed. It’s clearer that if a drone were to fly over a domestic base, it wouldn’t fly over the city of Hampton, where debris could fall on nearby areas.
Drone (Jens Büttner/picture Alliance via Getty Images)
Rules of engagement give military personnel the freedom to engage the drones if they enter the vicinity of overseas bases.
However, U.S. law does not allow the military to shoot down drones near bases unless they pose an immediate threat. Langley has authority to protect coastal bases, the Coast Guard has authority to protect maritime areas, and the Federal Aviation Administration has authority over the United States’ airspace, the most heavily trafficked by commercial airliners in the world.
Last week, a Chinese national was charged with flying an unauthorized drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. In October, Chinese national Fengyun Xi was sentenced to six months in prison for filming drone footage over the Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard in Newport News, Virginia, 16 miles from Langley Air Force Base. was announced.
In October 2023, two months before the Langley incident, five drones flew over the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Facility, which is being used for nuclear weapons testing. U.S. authorities also did not know who was behind the drone.
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A Chinese surveillance balloon flew over the United States for a week last year before the Air Force shot it down off the coast.
At the U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in California, where highly classified aerospace development takes place, flight restrictions around the site began in 2024 due to frequent intrusions by unidentified drones.
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