{"id":679132,"date":"2026-09-08T20:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T20:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/679132\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T20:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T20:27:10","slug":"aer-lingus-pilot-reports-sighting-of-large-drone-close-to-dublin-bay-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/679132\/","title":{"rendered":"Aer Lingus pilot reports sighting of large drone close to Dublin Bay \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A civilian aircraft operating over the Irish Sea has reported seeing a large drone close to Dublin Bay.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The pilot of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/aer-lingus\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/aer-lingus\/\">Aer Lingus<\/a> plane reported the sighting to Dublin Air Traffic Control at around 6pm on Tuesday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The report came at a time<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/2026\/09\/08\/some-flights-in-and-out-of-dublin-airport-delayed-due-to-uk-air-traffic-control-issues\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/2026\/09\/08\/some-flights-in-and-out-of-dublin-airport-delayed-due-to-uk-air-traffic-control-issues\/\"> widespread flight disruptions<\/a> in the UK and Ireland due to air traffic control issues in London. Around 50 flights operating in and out of Dublin were cancelled, as were around 600 others in the UK. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">According to a record of air traffic control transmissions, the Aer Lingus pilot reported the drone was operating at 6,000ft and was about 3km to the aircraft\u2019s left side at it flew into Dublin from Cornwall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The pilot reported the drone was about \u201c10 miles\u201d from LAPMO, a navigation point near Howth in north Co Dublin. That would put it somewhere off the Co Wicklow coast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Asked by air traffic control if he spotted any identifying marks on the drone, the pilot replied that it was large and black. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The air traffic controller said he would pass the information on to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin-airport\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin-airport\/\">Dublin Airport<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">An Irish Coast Guard helicopter was dispatched to the general area of the reported drone sighting a short time later. It spent a number of hours flying over the Dublin Bay area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">AirNav Ireland, which provides air traffic management services in Irish airspace, said an aircraft \u201carriving into Dublin this evening reported a possible drone sighting\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIn line with our normal safety procedures, a safety report was filed and the sighting was reported to An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na. As this matter is now with the relevant authorities, we have no further comment at this time,\u201d it added. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The purported sighting occurred shortly after the conclusion of meeting of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/politics\/2026\/09\/08\/summer-drought-shows-horticulture-needs-to-consider-irrigation-systems-heydon-says\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/politics\/2026\/09\/08\/summer-drought-shows-horticulture-needs-to-consider-irrigation-systems-heydon-says\/\">EU agriculture ministers in Dublin Castle<\/a>. It is not known if it caused any disruption to air traffic over Dublin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Aer Lingus, An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na and the Irish Aviation Authority have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A civilian aircraft operating over the Irish Sea has reported seeing a large drone close to Dublin Bay.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[2442,118524,79,18,19,17,12356],"class_list":["post-679132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-aer-lingus","tag-airnav-ireland","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-aviation-authority"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117237307772147015","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}