On Saturday, when a drone was seen flying over the Ohio State-Maryland college football game, officials promptly called off the nationally televised game and removed the players.
The disruption was brief; the drone took off, and police located and detained its operator, who admitted to losing control of his recently purchased craft as it swerved over Columbus’ Ohio Stadium. He is facing a number of criminal accusations, but according to the police, there is no proof of any malice.
Executives from the NFL, other major sports leagues, and members of Congress were all intently watching the occurrence, which was the latest in a run of drone invasions over stadiums. They claim it highlighted a significant security weakness that is made worse by holes in federal law and that they are concerned may lead to a significant loss of life.
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the chair of the Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, said, “We’re concerned about someone who would use (drones) in a criminal fashion and drop a grenade that would cause tremendous harm and perhaps kill persons.
Stadiums and other outdoor venues are mostly defenseless from an attack or mistake from above, security sources said NBC News. These locations are frequently safeguarded by layers of security on the ground. However, according to U.S. law, only the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are authorized to jam and shoot down rogue aircraft, and officials claim that those organizations lack the resources to cover the majority of major sporting events. The Russia-Ukraine war has shown how simple it is to weaponize small, off-the-shelf drones. They don’t deploy counter drone squads to normal games, only to the Super Bowl and the World Series.
According to Cathy Lanier, the NFL’s head of security, there have been 121,000 requests for the FBI and DHS to send teams to stadiums and other events since they were given drone mitigation authority in 2018. She said, “They were able to approve 77.”
Even that meager “takedown” power is in jeopardy because it is due to expire on November 17 along with the current legislative budget package. The NFL, NCAA, MLB, and NASCAR are among a group of sports leagues who support Peters and other politicians in their efforts to pass legislation giving state and local law enforcement agencies the power to shoot down rogue drones.
That idea has received support from FBI Director Christopher Wray, who stated in 2022 that the FBI looked into numerous examples of people attempting to weaponize small drones.
According to Lanier, it is already against the law for drones to fly above important athletic events. However, frequently there is no way to prevent that from occurring.
They are breaking the law when they enter that restricted airspace, she said. “All we’re asking is for control over that drone so we can get it out of our airspace,”
Around 2,500 drone incursions were reported above NFL stadiums last season, up from 1,300 the year before, according to Lanier. A drone soared above Seattle’s Lumen Field during a Seattle Seahawks-Atlanta Falcons game last year, causing a 10-minute delay in the action. In 2018, a man in Santa Clara and Oakland, both in California, adopted a drone to drop flyers over NFL games.
She said, “That could have been anything.” “To me, it appears to be a significant gap in our fence.”
Even without explosives, a drone over a stadium may cause havoc, according to experts. A panicky rush to the exits if spectators thought it was a threat might result in fatalities.
“We have 70,000 people in these stadiums and arenas,” Lanier claimed. “If panic is added to that situation, managing it becomes much more challenging. Then there are the potential victims. Therefore, we don’t want anyone to introduce anything that can cause chaos within the stadium.
At a Major League Baseball game between the Arizona Diamondbacks & the San Diego Padres at Petco Park in San Diego in 2017, a drone crashed only inches from a spectator.
Lanier, who led the D.C. police department from 2007 to 2016, spoke to the media before a Washington Commanders game at FedExField in Landover, Maryland. Anyone attempting to enter the stadium had to pass through a police vehicle checkpoint before going through metal detectors. However the airspace was not safeguarded by such security measures.
The Super Bowl in Atlanta (in 2019) was, in her opinion, the closest call that had been made since she had arrived.
An FBI crew discovered a drone just before six Air Force F-16s were scheduled to perform a flyover before the game. No time was available to take it down.
The flyover crew raised their altitude to ensure that there was no chance of a collision thanks to the FBI team’s successful communication with them.
The problem is not limited to stadiums; in July 2022, DHS reported to Congress that since 2021, there had been roughly 2,000 drone sightings in the vicinity of American airports, “including incursions at major airports nearly every day.”
And according to Peters, Mexican drug cartels are employing drones more frequently to transport illicit drugs across the border.
A drone carrying drugs may still fly over a wall, he claimed.
Lanier remarked, “We’ve got to quit kicking the can down the road. “It’s a problem that policy is not keeping up with technology.”